Albert Barnes Commentary Proverbs 6:1

"My son, if thou art become surety for thy neighbor, If thou hast stricken thy hands for a stranger;" — Proverbs 6:1 (ASV)

Surety - The “pledge,” or security for payment, which, for example, David was to bring back from his brothers (1 Samuel 17:18). So the word was used in the primitive trade transactions of the early Israelites.

In the warnings against this suretyship, in the Book of Proverbs, we may trace the influence of contact with the Phoenicians. The merchants of Tyre and Zidon seem to have discovered the value of credit as an element of wealth. A man might obtain goods, or escape the pressure of a creditor at an inconvenient season, or obtain a loan on more favorable terms, by finding security. To give such security might be one of the kindest acts one friend could perform for another.

Side by side, however, with a legitimate system of credit there sprang up, as in later times, a fraudulent counterfeit. Phoenician or Jewish money-lenders (the “stranger”) were ready to make their loans to the spendthrift. He was equally ready to find a companion (the “friend”) who would become his surety. It was merely a form, just writing a few words, just “a clasping of the hands” (see the marginal reference) as a sign that the obligation was accepted, and that was all. It would be unfriendly to refuse.

And yet, as the teacher warns his hearers, there might be, in that moment of careless weakness, the first link of a long chain of ignominy, galling, fretting, wearing, depriving life of all its peace.

The Jewish law of debt, hard and stern like that of most ancient nations, might be enforced against him in all its rigor. Money and land might go, the very bed under him might be seized, and his garment torn from his back (Proverbs 20:16; Proverbs 22:27), the older and more lenient law (Exodus 22:25–27) having apparently fallen into disuse.

He might be brought into a life-long bondage, subject only to the possible relief of the year of jubilee, when the people were religious enough to remember and observe it. His wives, his sons, his daughters might be sharers in that slavery (Nehemiah 5:3–5). It was doubtful whether he could claim the privilege which under (Exodus 21:2) belonged to an Israelite slave that had been bought.

Against such an evil, no warnings could be too frequent or too urgent.

Stricken your hand - The natural symbol of the promise to keep a contract; in this case, to pay another man’s debts. Compare Proverbs 17:18; Proverbs 22:26; Job 17:3; Ezekiel 17:18.