The fear of Jehovah [tendeth] to life, and he [that hath it] shall rest satisfied without being visited with evil.
One thing, the fear of the LORD, carries three promises here: life, settled contentment, and safety from harm. So what is that fear, and how can anyone rest satisfied in a world full of evil?
Start with the word "fear." It does not describe a slave cringing before a master.
"The fear of the LORD leads to life" (v. 23). This fear is not the fear of a slave. It is reverence. It simply gives the Lord His rightful place of authority over us. His authority is always kind and gracious. So the one who has this godly fear stays fully content, and evil does not break into his path.
William Kelly asks what has to come first, before anyone can fear God this way:
Was there ever true fear of Him without pardon? Psalm 130:4 makes it clear: there is forgiveness with Him, so that He may be feared. Without that pardon, what can the fear be but the dread of a slave, and tainted? Pardon gives the soul strength to "turn away from evil." We hate evil because He hates it.
Wolston counts up the times Proverbs says what the fear of the LORD is. This verse is the last of them.
You will find seven times in this book what the fear of the Lord is said to be. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction" (Prov. 1:7). The fear of the Lord is the first step to knowledge and progress… "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Prov. 9:10). There is a great difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge may make me proud, but wisdom never will. Knowledge is grasping the truth; wisdom is the ability to use it… "The fear of the LORD prolongs life" (Prov. 10:27)… "The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death" (Prov. 14:27). A sure way of escaping Satan's snares is of priceless value.
Kelly reads the middle promise, resting satisfied, in the light of what came later — when Christ made eternal life known:
Now that we know how Christ has made eternal life known, and what it gives to the believer, how much greater this saying becomes! What satisfaction can there be outside Him? "Whoever has the Son has life." Christ is also the food of that life. He is the true bread from heaven, giving life to the world through faith — not to Israel only — and He raises His own up at the last day.
James Boyd describes what happens to a person's hunger once they reach that life:
They no longer have the sense of need. They hunger no more. Their thirst is for ever quenched. They have come into the region of satisfied desire. They have got within them a fountain that springs up into eternal life.
The third promise is protection. Kelly shows where that safety comes from:
So we read next that in the fear of the LORD there is strong confidence. This fear takes away all other fear and becomes a tower of strength. It also helps others who tremble at His word, especially His children. What refuge is so sure and so near?
Kelly also names who stands behind the promise:
He is the Deliverer. What can man or Satan do to hurt? How will God not also give us all things with Him?
Wolston points to one man who lived out this verse: the criminal dying on a cross beside Jesus.
(7) "The fear of the LORD leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm" (Prov. 19:23). The thief entered fully into that, as he passed into Paradise that same day. I tell you, it would be good for you to get into the company of that thief who had the fear of the Lord.
- Fear — Not a slave's cringing, but reverence that gives God His rightful authority. And that authority is always kind.
- Pardon first — Without forgiveness, fear is only a slave's dread. Pardon makes true fear possible, and true fear hates evil because God hates it.
- Life — Proverbs names this fear seven times. The chain starts at the beginning of knowledge and ends here, at life itself.
- Satisfied — The rest promised here is in a Person, not in circumstances. Whoever has the Son has life, and there is no satisfaction outside Him.
- Kept — This one fear drives out every other fear and becomes a tower of strength. The dying thief proved it, entering Paradise that same day.
A sluggard burieth his hand in the dish, and will not even bring it to his mouth again.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware; reprove the intelligent, and he will understand knowledge.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
He that ruineth [his] father and chaseth away [his] mother is a son that causeth shame and bringeth reproach.
This proverb condemns a son who turns on the two people who gave him life. It stands in a chapter that has just described the lazy man and the mocker, so why does this sin rank above them both?
The verses before this one move up a ladder of folly. Commenting on that order, one writer sees the son of verse 26 standing at the top of it — and notes what his conduct does to a mother's appeals.
A mocker is worse than a lazy man. More guilty still is the son who robs his father and drives away his mother and her loving appeals. What shame and dishonour he brings!
The proverb is not offering a new rule. It is showing what happens when an old one is trampled. And the shame others see is not the whole account.
The law of Moses had said, "Honor your father and your mother." If a man dares to mistreat his father and chase away his mother, the results will in the end be even worse than shame and reproach (v. 26). Others may see the shame and reproach at once. But the guilty man will also have to answer to God for this evil.
The law of Moses set the same penalty for striking a parent and for cursing one. One writer draws out what God was protecting by that.
Both striking and cursing father or mother (vv. 15, 17) incurred the same penalty. So God backed parental authority with the holy penalties of His law, and He required children to treat it with reverence… For it is God's own authority that they represent… But if striking and cursing earthly parents deserve death, how much greater is the sin of open rebellion against God.
Elsewhere Proverbs describes a son who robs his parents and tells himself it is not really theft. One writer names what such a son is destroying.
How grossly ungrateful that a young man should rob those who have cared and provided for him since his youth — his own flesh and blood. He is a companion of a destroyer, because this is the very principle of destruction. He destroys a proper, solid relationship. He destroys the very blessings he has depended on for years. And yet his moral sense is so twisted that he does not count it wrongdoing. He excuses himself for this wickedness because of his relationship to his parents. They are not likely to press legal charges against him.
The proverb describes the ruin. The New Testament shows the way out, and one writer explains where Christianity places the duty of children.
The subjection of children to their parents is part of God's order as seen in nature… Christianity takes up the obligation, but moves it from natural ground to divine ground. "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land." (Eph. 6:1-3.) So the duty of children, like that of wives, is tied to "the Lord." It is not only what nature tells us, though that is right. It is the acknowledgment of the Lord's claims, which the parents represent. The blessed Lord Himself, who "learned obedience," was the beautiful example of this. Scripture records that in His lifetime He went with His parents to Nazareth and was subject to them.
This proverb is not a museum piece. One writer links the collapse of respect for parents to Paul's description of the last days. The damage reaches further than the guilty son.
In our day, respect and reverence for parents have decayed, and this has hurt us badly. The marks of the last days that Paul describes to Timothy — "disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless" — are growing clearer and clearer. Even in the natural family, children rarely give the honour and reverence they owe, and parents just as rarely expect it. That honour is not only morally fitting; God counts it as due from each to the other. As a result, parental authority grows slack. Often only the barest appearance of it survives, even in the families of believers.
- Ranked — The chapter climbs from the lazy man to the mocker to this son. He is more guilty than either, because he robs a father and drives off a mother's loving appeals.
- Represented — The offence is not merely domestic. Parents represent God's authority. The law guarded it by punishing both striking and cursing a parent.
- Excused — A related proverb on robbing parents shows the twist in this sin. The son knows his parents will not prosecute him, so he tells himself it is no crime.
- Answered — Shame and reproach are what people see at once. Commentators point past that to an accounting with God the guilty man cannot avoid.
- Reversed — The cure is honour, lifted from natural instinct to obedience "in the Lord." Christ Himself modelled it, subject to His parents at Nazareth.
Cease, my son, to hear the instruction which causeth to stray from the words of knowledge.
A father is speaking to his son here, and the subject is the ear. What does a young person keep listening to, and what happens when the listening stops? Readers have understood the wording in two ways. Both point the same way: guard what you hear, because you drift toward the voices you keep letting in.
Commentators differ over how the sentence turns. Some read it as advice to stop listening to a certain teaching altogether — teaching that pulls the hearer away from what he knows. The danger is then not a lack of teachers, but plenty of the wrong ones.
In such a world of sin the enemy finds no shortage of harmful men and women. They not only stray away from the words of knowledge themselves; they enjoy misleading those who are off their guard. Cease, my son, to hear such fatal instruction.
Others read it as the ESV does. Stop your ears to sound instruction, and straying is certain to follow. The warning then lands on a very ordinary failing: boredom with good teaching.
Verse 27 is a necessary warning for many — those who get tired of listening to sound instruction. Joash evidently listened to instruction as long as Jehoiada the priest lived, but then he stopped (2 Chronicles 24:17-22). He chose to serve idols instead. Soon his own servants conspired against him and stoned him to death. He did indeed stray from the words of knowledge.
Joash is the whole proverb in one life. Nothing dramatic happened at first. A king outlived his teacher and stopped listening.
The two readings are two halves of one process. A closed ear does not stay empty for long.
"They will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths" (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Satan usually stops the ear against sound doctrine first. Then he opens it to embrace corrupt doctrine.
If straying begins at the ear, that is where watchfulness belongs. There is also a test for what gets in.
Ear-gate must have its watch-tower too. The Lord said, "Pay attention to what you hear." What enters the ear finds a dwelling place in the memory. If it is evil, its influence spreads through the whole life. The enemy approaches ear-gate with his falsehoods in a plausible disguise. Be watchful and refuse to listen to anything unholy. Some words take away from the honour of God, the glory of Christ, or the integrity of His word. The watchful hearer closes his ears at once.
Some teaching attacks the person of Christ or the gospel itself. The answer is not to listen carefully and then weigh it up. The answer is distance.
Anyone who has respect for Christ, or the fear of God, will flee from such teaching. Anyone who values the essential truth of the gospel will do the same. He will flee from it as from a snake — and even more urgently.
That refusal is practical, not just inward. It gets tested at the front door of an ordinary home, where false teachers come knocking.
They evidently went from house to house, just as they do today. They were to be firmly refused entry and given no fellowship, not even in words. A woman and even her children were to refuse such basic error without compromise. That same attitude to the false teacher and his teaching must mark every one of us.
It is tempting to blame bad teachers for the drift. One commentator traces the trouble one step further back — to what the hearer wants.
It should be noticed, however, that this kind of corruption starts with the hearers. They are the ones who "will not endure sound teaching." Having "itching ears," they "accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions." ... Plain scriptural teaching explains and applies the mind of God as contained in the Scriptures. That is not enough for such hearers. Neither are the teachers whom the Lord sends, since they prefer to heap up and choose their own.
- Guard. Straying begins at the ear, so the ear needs a watchtower. Pay attention to what you hear. What enters lodges in the memory and spreads through the whole life.
- Test. Test any voice with one question. Does it take away from the honour of God, the glory of Christ, or the integrity of His word? Where the gospel itself is at stake, flee instead of lingering.
- Tire. The common failure is not open rebellion but tiredness of sound teaching. Joash listened while Jehoiada lived, and stopped when he died.
- Swap. A closed ear does not stay empty. Satan shuts it against sound doctrine, then opens it to corrupt doctrine. Hearers who will not endure sound teaching collect teachers who suit them.
- Shut. Refusal is practical, not just private. Turn teaching that undermines Christ away at the door of an ordinary house.
A witness of Belial scorneth judgment, and the mouth of the wicked swalloweth down iniquity.
The verse pictures a court gone wrong. One man treats justice as a joke, and his mouth swallows evil like food. Both halves raise the same question: is God as easy to fool as the judge?
Older translations call this man "a witness of Belial." The word is not a name but a description of what he is worth.
The Hebrew word means "worthless, lawless." It is not a proper name. It stands for evil itself, so we read of a "son of Belial" and a "daughter of Belial" (Deuteronomy 13:13; Judges 19:22; 1 Samuel 1:16; 1 Samuel 25:17, 25). The New Testament sets it against Christ, as if it meant Satan (2 Corinthians 6:15).
So the phrase is not a mild insult. The word stands for evil itself, and the New Testament sets it opposite Christ. A man who lies under oath has taken his stand on the wrong side of that line.
A man does not sneer at a courtroom by accident. He has already made his choice about truth, and the damage he causes no longer registers with him.
A disreputable witness scorns justice. He has given himself up to falsehood, and he does not care if others suffer from his wicked testimony. What a striking comment this is: "the mouth of the wicked devours iniquity." Such men may well expect the severe punishment of the next verse: "Judgments are prepared for scoffers, and beatings for the back of fools."
Look at the second half of the verse. No one drags him into evil. He feeds on it.
Of all the wrongs this chapter names, this one is the most brazen. The mocker aims his contempt at a human court.
Still more daring, a witness of Belial is he who mocks at judgment; and the mouth of the wicked drinks down iniquity. But sooner or later God is not mocked, even if man is deceived; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
But a higher court is listening. The harvest may be slow. It still comes.
Scripture's warning to the man who lies on the stand goes past ordinary punishment.
Those who hear and say much must take to heart the next solemn warning: "a false witness shall not be held innocent, and one who utters lies shall perish." He is not merely punished. He perishes. It is most hateful to God and most injurious to man. No one can say where the evil may spread, or how it may end here, but we do know how the Lord judges it forever.
Hold the two reasons together. God hates the lie, and the lie hurts people. No one can trace how far it will travel.
You might file this verse under old laws for old courts. One writer asks what grace does to that idea.
Here we see how God hates false witness. And we must keep in mind that, though we are not under law but under grace, false witness is no less hateful to God. The more fully we enter into the grace in which we stand, the more we will hate false witness, slander, and evil speaking of every kind. May the good Lord preserve us from all such!
Slander and casual evil speaking belong in the same family as perjury. Grace does not soften our view of them; it sharpens it.
The next verse hands down the sentence — judgments for scorners, blows for the backs of fools. One writer refuses to call that fate.
It is not that God desires any man to be condemned. Those who are lost gave themselves up to their own will, which is nothing but sin, and had a ready helper in the great enemy who makes them his slaves. But God wanted to make known the riches of His glory on the objects of His mercy, so in His grace He prepared them beforehand for glory. All the sin is in and of the creature; all the good is of God. This is the truth about both God and man, whose only resource is by grace in Christ.
The scorner's ruin is his own doing. The mercy that saves is all God's.
- Worthless. The verse names a witness of Belial — "worthless, lawless." The word stands for evil itself, the opposite of Christ.
- Surrendered. He can scorn justice because he has already given himself up to falsehood and stopped caring who suffers for it.
- Appetite. His mouth does not merely speak evil, it devours it; sin has become food rather than an occasional slip.
- Harvest. A human court can be fooled; God cannot. What a man sows, he reaps — the false witness does not merely get punished, he perishes.
- Mercy. The sentence on scorners is real, yet all the sin is the creature's and all the good is God's; the one way out is grace in Christ.
Judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the back of the foolish.
Proverbs ends this chapter in a courtroom. The man who mocks correction finds that God has a sentence ready for him. What makes a person a "scoffer"? And how can a God of grace have judgments prepared in advance?
The scoffer is not just a doubter. He has set himself against being told anything.
A scorner is a bolder sinner against God and his own soul. He does not like being corrected; "to the wise he will not go." Self is his aim and in practice his God, and folly is his life. So he refuses, with contempt, all wisdom from above.
His problem is not ignorance but contempt, and that leaves him beyond help.
But what hope can there be of a scorner? Of one who cannot imagine himself to blame, and counts him an enemy who is faithful enough to tell him the truth?
The verse is the last line of a sequence, and each step down that sequence is worse than the one before. The verse just before it describes a worthless witness who mocks justice, and commentators tie the two together directly.
"A disreputable witness scorns justice" (v. 25), for he has given himself up to falsehood and does not care if others suffer from his wicked testimony. It is a most striking comment, "the mouth of the wicked devours iniquity." They may well expect the severe punishment of verse 29: "Judgments are prepared for scoffers, and beatings for the back of fools."
The scoffer's confidence rests on nothing happening yet. That timing is exactly what deceives him.
Bolder still is the worthless witness who mocks at judgment; and the mouth of the wicked drinks down iniquity. But sooner or later God is not mocked, though man is deceived; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
The word "prepared" raises the hardest question here: does God get ruin ready for people in advance? Kelly quotes an older wording of the verse — "judgments" and "stripes" — and answers by asking who does the preparing.
Therefore it is true that "judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the back of the foolish." God does not desire any man to be condemned. But what if He, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath fitted for destruction? They gave themselves up to their own will, which is nothing but sin, and had a ready helper in the arch enemy who makes them his slaves. But so that God might make known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy, He in His grace prepared them beforehand for glory. All the sin is in and of the creature; all the good is of God. This is the truth as to both God and man, whose only resource is by grace in Christ.
The blows do not change the scoffer. Others are watching, though.
Striking a scorner may be wasted on him, and it will be; but the simple take heed, gain from it, and become prudent. The man of intelligence lays admonition to heart, and grasps a knowledge he did not have before. So both the simple and the wise are gainers.
There is a cheaper way to learn the same lesson.
The wise, on the other hand, will not even need such measures to preserve them. They will receive knowledge in being instructed. How much better to learn by hearing the Word of God than to need painful experience to learn!
The verse says one thing twice. As Arno Clemens Gaebelein notes, "the second clause restates what is given in the first." The beating, then, is a real sentence with a named recipient. That is what makes one line in Isaiah astonishing.
In the reading and remembering of these few words the wonder of divine suffering keeps growing on us. The Servant of Jehovah is before us, enduring stripes; "by whose stripes you were healed," as Peter quotes it. Stripes! Stripes are for the back of fools, as the wise man teaches us (Prov. 19:29). The law of Moses let a judge in Israel who found a man guilty sentence him to stripes, but never more than forty (Deut. 25:1-3).
The sentence fell on the one Man to whom it was never owed. (Older versions say "stripes" where the ESV says "wounds" in Isaiah, and "beating" here in Proverbs.)
Now, in the eyes of both God and man, the Lord Jesus was found without guilt. "I find no fault in Him," said the Roman governor. The Father declared from heaven that He found His good pleasure in His beloved Son... Yet it is of this spotless, unblemished One that we read, "With His stripes we are healed."
- Prepared by refusal. The scoffer is not the uninformed man. He "cannot imagine himself to blame," and by refusing every correction he prepares his own sentence.
- Prepared, but not by God. God does not desire any man's ruin. Sin comes from the creature; grace prepares glory beforehand.
- Prepared as a warning. The blow lost on the scoffer is not lost on the crowd; the simple watch and grow wise.
- Prepared cheaply or dearly. Learn by hearing God's Word, or learn by painful experience. Same lesson, very different prices.
- Prepared — and then taken. Stripes are the fool's due, yet they fell on the spotless One. For those who come to Him, healing is ready, not condemnation.