Give not sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids.
All Commentaries on Proverbs 6:4 Go To Proverbs 6
Gregory The Dialogist
AD 604
Whoever is responsible for others for an example of living is admonished to be watchful not only over himself but also to arouse his friend. Indeed, it is not sufficient for him to keep watch by a good life, if he does not remove from the torpor of sin the person over whom he is set, for it is well said: “Give not sleep to your eyes, neither let your eyelids slumber.” To give sleep to the eyes is to cease from care and thus to neglect altogether the charge of subjects. The eyelids slumber when our thoughts, weighed down by sloth, connive at what we know should be reproved. To be in deep sleep is neither to know, nor to correct, the actions of those committed to us. To slumber but not to sleep is to be well aware of what should be reprehended but not to amend it with proper reproof, owing to mental sloth. Yet by slumbering, the eye is induced to sleep profoundly, because commonly the superior who does not eradicate the evil which he observes, comes to that state which his negligence deserves, namely, not even to recognize the sins of his subjects. Therefore, those who [care for others’ souls] must be warned to be earnestly on the watch, to have vigilant eyes within and round about, and to strive to become living creatures of heaven. .
