There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof is the ways of death.
This proverb warns against the judge a person trusts most: his own sense that he is on the right road. The verse does not describe a way that looks wrong, but one that looks right, and it says where such a road finishes.
The Danger of Trusting Your Own Judgment
The words "seems right to a man" put the whole weight on human judgment. If a person's honest opinion settles the matter, nothing outside him can correct him. One writer asks whether God has left us without a standard.
Next we come to man's "ways," and the danger of trusting his own opinion of them. If a way seems right to him, people say, Why blame him? He is sincere, and no one has the right to judge him wrong. Is there then no divine standard by which we can test our thoughts, no way to form a sound and certain judgment? Why then did God reveal His Word, and early on in a form drawn from real experience? … No; a man is accountable for his thoughts and his feelings just as much as for his words and his ways; "and its end is the way to death."
Sincerity Is Not the Test
A way that seems right can carry a completely honest traveller to death. So the broad road is not simply the road of open vice.
There are plenty of open ways of death, and everyone knows that men do not get to heaven by drunkenness or violence. But a way may seem right to a man, so that he follows it in complete sincerity, and it may still turn out in the end to be the way of death. That is a startling thing to face. So let everyone consider this. The "broad way that leads to destruction, and many go in by it" is not necessarily a way of open wickedness. Sinful self is of course against God; but righteous self is a more widespread and a worse enemy. The tax collectors and sinners followed Christ. The Pharisees and religious people could not believe in Him.
Two examples show where sincerity can lead.
Human sincerity means nothing. Often it is the strongest proof of the desperate darkness a man is in. The people Christ spoke of were sincere when He said, "Anyone who kills you will think he is serving God." Saul of Tarsus was completely sincere when he "thought" he "ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth." He also consulted the chief priests and elders, the religious authorities of the day.
What the Broad Way Really Is
This warning does not fall on people who want ruin. It falls on people searching for life.
No one expects the way of sin to lead heavenward, however careless he may be about it. The question is about finding the way of life. So the solemn warning to beware of false prophets comes right after it — men who would lead their listeners onto the broad way of death.
A Worked Example
One family's story shows the proverb happening.
Following his own judgment, Elimelech took the road to Moab to find food that perishes, but there he also found his grave. "And Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons." In Moab the home of that family from Bethlehem became a house of mourning.
The Safeguard: A Voice Outside Ourselves
Our own sense of what is right can fail. So where does certainty come from?
The soul is the driving part of man's nature. It is the part that needs to be turned back, or held back, from following its own desires… We try to please God, and for all we know we may be offending Him. The road we take to heaven may, after all, be the road to hell, for "there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." When God has spoken, and we have heard His voice, our path becomes simple obedience. We are not left to test it by results, which come far too late to help us with what lies ahead.
The Way With No Death In It
The verse names a road that ends in death. Is there a road that does not?
Is there then a way that has no end, no death in it? Yes, there is: "In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death." And what is that pathway? It is the pathway of God's will, and nothing can bring it to an end.
Summary
- Seems — the road is chosen because it looks right, not because it looks wrong; the danger sits inside a person's own judgment.
- Sincere — honesty about the route changes nothing about the destination; sincerity can itself be the proof of blindness.
- Religious — the broad way need not be open wickedness; self that thinks itself righteous is the worse enemy.
- Death — Elimelech went to Moab for bread and found a grave there; the end, not the appearance, tells the truth about a path.
- Spoken — safety lies in a voice outside ourselves, because results come too late to warn us. God's will is the path with no death in it.