I have mentioned “Yahweh” verses a couple of times already in our study of Proverbs- there are 9 of them in Chapter 15. A Yahweh verse is simply a verse that is provided as a direct insight into God’s thinking on a subject. It is not a direct quote from God Himself, but rather an instance where the Holy Spirit, in guiding the author, has revealed God’s view directly, as opposed to advice from a father to a son, or genetically from “the wise”.  These 9 verses in chapter 15 are verses 3, 8, 9, 11, 16, 25, 26, 29, and 33. Let’s have a look at vv. 25-26:

The Lord tears down the house of the proud,
    but he sets the widow’s boundary stones in place.

The Lord detests the thoughts of the wicked,
    but gracious words are pure in his sight.

We can see in these two examples that they are not direct statements from God; it doesn’t say “I will…” but rather it says “the Lord will…” Next thing to note is that these statements are not necessarily intended to be taken literally. There are plenty of houses of the proud that stand for centuries without being literally torn down, but in the end, the proud will find themselves in a place where they must either repent or be destroyed, either in this life or at the Judgement of all. The same would be true for the widow’s house; the foundation God provides may very well be something far more precious than mere brick and mortar.

As far as the second verse, I have a story for you: Last summer, I came across a video called Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will). This film, from 1934, was an award-winning film all across Europe, and its production and cinematography were ground-breaking. This was the complete film, in the original German.

From time-to-time I watch videos in German to try and remember that language that I learned 50+ years ago and almost never have an opportunity to use. It took me 20 or 30 minutes to get my brain tuned in, but when it all started coming back to me and I was getting about 80-90% of what was being said, I had to turn it off because the message is sick and twisted in the extreme.

Triumph des Willens is a Nazi propaganda film, made at the Nuremburg Party rally in 1934 and the main speaker is Hitler himself: Sick. This was only my reaction; I can only imagine what God thinks of such pure evil. Even so, for me it was a good language exercise trying to follow Hitler’s low-class theatrical Germon accent but… as Paul Harvey used to say, “Wesh your ears out with this:” gracious words are pure in his sight.