Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.
Here is, 1. A charge given to be faithful and constant to our friends, our old friends, to keep up an intimacy with them, and to be ready to do them all the offices that lie in our power. It is good to have a friend, a bosom-friend, whom we can be free with, and with whom we may communicate counsels.
Commenting on Proverbs 27:9-10
Thine own friend, and thy father's friend forsake not,.... Who have been long tried and proved, and found faithful; these should be kept to and valued, and not new ones sought; which to do is oftentimes of bad consequence. Solomon valued his father's friend Hiram, and kept up friendship with him; but Rehoboam his son forsook the counsel of the old men his father's friends...
rejoice the heart--the organ of perceiving what pleases the senses. sweetness . . . counsel--or, "wise counsel is also pleasing."