The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out.
Here is, 1. The danger that there is in the beginning of strife. One hot word, one peevish reflection, one angry demand, one spiteful contradiction, begets another, and that a third, and so on, till it proves like the cutting of a dam; when the water has got a little passage it does itself widen the breach, bears down all before it, and there is...
The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water,.... As when a man makes a little hole in the bank of a river, or cuts a small passage in it, to let the water into an adjoining field; by the force of the water, the passage is widened, and it flows in, in great abundance, to the overflow and prejudice of the field...
letteth . . . water--as a breach in a dam. before . . . meddled with--before strife has become sharp, or, by an explanation better suiting the figure, before it rolls on, or increases.