Life Project Blog

Proverbs 19:16-25

¹⁶Whoever keeps commandments keeps their life,
    but whoever shows contempt for their ways will die.

A double contrast: Whoever keeps commandments vs. shows contempt for their ways and keeps their life vs. will die. One who is obedient to God is careful about his ways, and God blesses him with the salvation of his soul, but one who is disobedient to God is careless about his ways, and the wages of sin is and has always been death (Gen:17; Isa. 1:19,20; Rom. 6:21,23; 8:6; Phil. 3:19; Jas. 1:15.)

¹⁷ Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,
    and he will reward them for what they have done.

The wording implies “giving to the poor”. To “be kind” is to feel for, to make their burden your burden, to be touched enough about their situation to stop what you are doing and help them. This we are taught to do: Luke 11:41‘; i2:’33; Gal. 6:lO; I John 3:17; Jas. 1:27; Matt. 25:35-36. Cornelius (Acts 10:2,4; and Dorcas (Acts 9:36) were alms givers. Give to the poor, and God has promised to pick up the debt (Luke 14:12-14). Notice the message of Prov. 28:27.

¹⁸ Discipline your children, for in that there is hope;
    do not be a willing party to their death.

Correction administered in time without which the child’s mischief becomes meanness, and the character becomes set in wickedness. Other passages teaching parental correction: Prov. 13:24; 23:13,14; 29:17. A German saying: “It is better that the child weep than the father.”

¹⁹ A hot-tempered person must pay the penalty;
    rescue them, and you will have to do it again.

A man given to anger always turns to it when things don’t go his way. It is a sign of a character-weakness: the inability to cope with either one’s situation or one’s limitations. A person who loses their temper is like an addict: it won’t be the last time.

²⁰ Listen to advice and accept discipline,
    and at the end you will be counted among the wise.

One’s wisdom is constituted of what one gains on his own and of what others seek to share. The more one has, the more apt he is to listen to what others would impart to him, and the less wisdom one has, the less apt he is to regard the good advice of others.

²¹ Many are the plans in a person’s heart,
    but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

It is not what we want that always comes to pass but what God desires (or allows). See Psa. 33:10,11; Prov. 16:1,2; Isa. 14:26,27; 46: 10; Heb. 6: 17. Men in a human council meeting thought they could stop Christianity (Acts 4:17), but they passed away, and the Word of God is still living, active, and powerful. Herod of Acts 12 took up against the church, killed James, and intended to kill Peter, but before the chapter was ended, he was dead, and in contrast to him Acts 12:24 says, “But the word of God grew and multiplied.”

²² What a person desires is unfailing love;
    better to be poor than a liar.

This verse states that which we desire in people, and heading the list is love. We like people who are kind; we like to be around them; their influence upon us is good. We appreciate their thoughtfulness; we appreciate their willingness to be helpful. We are comfortable and at home in their presence. An unkind person is just the opposite. The Bible says, “Be ye kind” (Eph. 4:32); “Love … is kind” (I Cor. 13:4). Concerning the second statement of the verse, this chapter has already shown that people go from and do not want to claim close connections with the extremely poor (vs. 4,7), yet they prefer a poor man to a liar (compare v. 1). A man who will lie to others will lie to you. He is one you cannot trust, for he is not conscientious before God and with men. He makes a poor friend.

²³ The fear of the Lord leads to life;
    then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

This verse departs from Proverbs’ customary two-line verses. Notice the three lines here. “Leads to” shows the usual or general results of fearing God. It means, other things being equal, that one who fears God will live longer-not only longer, but he will reap more satisfaction from living than those who lack it, the reason being that he will have fewer hardships because of not being visited with evil. The “fear of God” takes us back to the first real saying in Proverbs: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (1:7)

²⁴ A sluggard buries his hand in the dish;
    he will not even bring it back to his mouth!

Proverbs has much to say about lazy people: they spend much time sleeping (6:9; 24:30-34; 20:4; 26:13). ,This verse “out-lazies” the others as it pictures a man putting his hand into the dish to get something to eat and then being too lazy to lift it to his mouth (Prov. 26:16). When one is too lazy to feed himself, he is as lazy as he can get. Yet all of life becomes a burden to the ambitionless person, the person with no purpose, no motivation. There is an Arabic proverb: “He dies of hunger under the date tree.”

²⁵ Flog a mocker, and the simple will learn prudence;
    rebuke the discerning, and they will gain knowledge.

A scoffer is out of order whether he scoff at God or is plagued with the spirit of scoffing at people. He should be dealt with (the younger the better). The verse implies that even if he doesn’t profit by it, the onlooking who might have taken up his ways will be affected for good (compare Deut. 13:10,11). Reproving a wise person definitely aids him, for he wishes to increase his learning, and he is wise enough to see the rightness of the rebuke (last part of Prov. 9:9). Prov. 21:ll is very similar to this verse in both of its statements: “When the scoffer is punished, the simple is made wise; And when the wise is instructed, he gains knowledge.”

Proverbs 19:8-15

The one who gets wisdom loves life;
    the one who cherishes understanding will soon prosper. (19:8)

This verse provides transition for the next several which are a collection of verses that identify things which are not proper or fitting for a wise person. We can look at this short section as a statement of a goal, in this case obtaining wisdom and understanding, and then showing what will not accomplish the goal.

To see this, consider verse 9…

A false witness will not go unpunished,
    and whoever pours out lies will perish.

Solomon is trying to tell us that if we want to obtain wisdom and understanding, we will not succeed by telling lies all the time. In fact, sooner or later, we will get burned by our own lies.

Here’s another one, verse 12…

A king’s rage is like the roar of a lion,
    but his favor is like dew on the grass.

If we really and truly desire to become wise, we mustn’t tick off the king. Consider: Back in the days when kings ruled their lands with absolute power, it required a very special kind of idiot to set about to anger the king. Rather, a person with anything even slightly resembling wisdom made it a project to please the king.

All right, I think you have the idea, but there are a couple of these that aren’t so easy, and I’d love to hear your take on them. See you next time!

Chapter 19 deals primarily with the issues of poverty and wealth, Here in vv. 1-7, poverty comes to the fore…

19:1     Better the poor whose walk is blameless
    than a fool whose lips are perverse.

This is very similar to Proverbs 28:6. There is often a connection between being poorer and honest and being dishonest and getting rich. The “fool” in this verse is apparently a rich fool, or at least, a fool who is comfortable. In any case, we see a common theme at work here in which a poor man who is without guile in his dealings, and who has integrity, is in a better position than an wealthier person who is lacking character and integrity.

V. 2: Desire without knowledge is not good—
    how much more will hasty feet miss the way!

As I read this verse in the NIV, it occurs to me that something is wrong. I checked King James: Also, that the soul be without knowledge, it is not good; and he that hasteth with his feet sinneth.

That is way different, much more than usual, so I took a look at the New American Standard (NASB) which is very literal: Also it is not good for a person to be without knowledge, And one who hurries his footsteps errs. {Lit. “sins”}. Still not satisfied, I used the Blue Letter Bible on line to see the Hebrew interlinear, and I came away with the opinion that the NASB is probably the best translation of a very tough verse to translate. So, let’s try again…

V. 2: Also it is not good for a person to be without knowledge, And one who hurries his footsteps errs. (NASB)

It is not a good situation for anyone to be without knowledge and in the language of Proverbs, that person would be a fool. Also, it isn’t good to rush through everything carelessly for it leads to errors, mistakes and even sin.

V. 3: A person’s own folly leads to their ruin,
    yet their heart rages against the Lord.

Rom. 1:19-32 gives a running account of the way mankind subverted its way: they began with a knowledge of God; there came a time when they did not glorify Him as they should; darkness set in upon their unspiritual hearts; in their conceit they began making idols, and the longer they went the worse representation of God they made; they came to be filled with all kinds of wickedness; God finally gave up on them until Gospel times, and that about sums up the verse, and our story.

V. 4: Wealth attracts many friends,
    but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them.

Compare v. 7. People like to identify with someone who will be a credit to them in the eyes of men, not with someone who will discredit them. The poorest of families don’t have very many real friends: those who will claim them, invite them over, etc. (Prov. 14:20). Sometimes even relatives practically disown extreme poverty cases.

V. 5: A false witness will not go unpunished,
    and whoever pours out lies will not go free.

Another case of Hebrew parallelism in which the latter statement is a restatement of the first. This verse is almost identical to v. 9. For the punishment of false witnesses, see Prov. 21:28; Deut. 19:16-19.

V. 6: Many curry favor with a ruler,
    and everyone is the friend of one who gives gifts.

People seek his favor for what he can do for them. A saying: “Be an unusual success, and you will have many false friends and true enemies.” This can raise the question: Do people love you or what you can do for them? Let a child show up on the school ground with a sack of candy, and everybody wants some; “you know me,” many will say.

V. 7: The poor are shunned by all their relatives—
    how much more do their friends avoid them!
Though the poor pursue them with pleading,
    they are nowhere to be found.

This is another verse that is tough to translate, but here the NIV seems to me to be on the right track. If you want to check it, you can use the method I mentioned above.

In v. 6 everybody wants to be a friend of the well-to-do, the one who gives gifts; but in this verse a man’s friends and relatives even go away from him, not wanting to have anything to do with him. Even the poor man’s words of appeal fall on deaf ears.

From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled;
    with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied.

The tongue has the power of life and death,
    and those who love it will eat its fruit.

He who finds a wife finds what is good
    and receives favor from the Lord.

The poor plead for mercy,
    but the rich answer harshly.

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin,
    but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Prov 18:20-24

Chapter 18 winds up with these 5 verses that, once again, give us insight into the nature of disputes and their avoidance. Verses 20 and 21 are all about what people choose to say. Most people today do not quite understand how powerful their words can be, and most often, what is said is so careless that their speech seldom rises beyond nonsense. Words can be as destructive as a bomb, or they can build great cities. Our author describes the result of speech as “Fruit” that can satisfy and fill a person. It is an apt metaphor, as fruit can nourish a person or sicken a person.

Verse 22 takes quite a different angle about disputes, for a person who finds a wife not only finds what is good, but he finds himself within God’s will for creating humanity (cf. Genesis 2:20-25).

The final two verses reference the friends we keep. If we really think about it, we may have a lot of friends at any given time, yet

 If we are honest, most of those are more likely acquaintances and not true friends. Sometimes there may be someone who insinuates themselves into our circle of friends and who goes to great lengths to earn our trust, only to take advantage of us and bring about our ruin. Yet a true friend will remain at our side no matter what and will always have our back.