The sluggard

From Derek Kidner's commentary on Proverbs (via C.J. Mahaney):

The sluggard in Proverbs is a figure of tragi‐comedy, with his
sheer animal laziness (he is more than anchored to his bed: he
is hinged to it, 26:14), his preposterous excuses (“there is a
lion outside!” 26:13; 22:13) and his final helplessness.

(1) He will not begin things. When we ask him (6:9, 10) “How
long...?” “When...?”, we are being too definite for him. He
doesn’t know. All he knows is his delicious drowsiness; all he
asks is a little respite: “a little...a little...a little...”. He does not
commit himself to a refusal, but deceives himself by the
smallness of his surrenders. So, by inches and minutes, his
opportunity slips away.

(2) He will not finish things. The rare effort of beginning has
been too much; the impulse dies. So his quarry goes bad on
him (12:27) and his meal goes cold on him (19:24; 26:15).

(3) He will not face things. He comes to believe his own
excuses (perhaps there is a lion out there, 22:13), and to
rationalize his laziness; for he is “wiser in his own conceit than
seven men that can render a reason” (26:16). Because he
makes a habit of the soft choice (he “will not plow by reason
of the cold,” 20:4) his character suffers as much as his
business, so that he is implied in 15:19 to be fundamentally
dishonest...

(4) Consequently he is restless (13:4; 21:25, 26) with
unsatisfied desire; helpless in face of the tangle of his affairs,
which are like a “hedge of thorns” (15:19); and useless—
expensively (18:9) and exasperatingly (10:26)—to any who
must employ him...

The wise man will learn while there is time. He knows that the
sluggard is no freak, but, as often as not, an ordinary man who
has made too many excuses, too many refusals and too many
postponements. It has all been as imperceptible, and as
pleasant, as falling asleep.

‐Derek Kidner, Proverbs (IVP, 1964), pp. 42–43.