 |
|
     |
|
|
|
The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan
Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)
Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)
The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom
From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John
Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
Truth-telling has come to be seen as mean-spirited, bigoted, nasty. Truth-telling is hateful, we have come to believe. Soothing lies are often preferred.
Solomon sees things different. ”A lying tongue hates those it crushes” (Proverbs 26:27). That carries two implications, each of which has a converse.
First, it indicates that lies are hateful; when we lie, we treat another as an enemy (and this is why lying to enemies is condoned in the Bible). Conversely, truth-telling is an act of love. Second, Solomon is saying that lies crush, oppression, and beat down. Conversely, truth liberates.
Our media, our government, our educational system, our scholars, our pastors and priests, tell us lies on a regular basis. And it is the calling of the church to expose those lies and to tell the truth, for the sake of the oppressed.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 12:49 pm
PROVERBS 26:22
Language is a constant theme of the Proverbs. Wisdom is skill, and one of the central skills a wise person must learn is skill in speech. This skill has not only to do with speaking the truth, but even more with questions of tone and timing. Wisdom is like having a sense of rhythm, learning God’s ways and words well enough to lean into the next step at just the right time. Wisdom in words is like being a stand-up comedian, understanding timing.
Several of the proverbs in chapter 26 are about proper speech, and the effect of wrong sorts of speech in stirring up contention and strife. In verse 20, the speech of a “whisperer” or a “gossiper” is compared to the wood that stokes up a fire, and in verse 22 Solomon returns to this character, the whisperer. While verse 20 compares the words of a whisperer to fuel, verse 22 focuses more on the pleasure of the whisperer’s words.
Human beings love secrets. There is something thrilling in being “in the know” about something that no one else knows. Secrets and secrecy are not in themselves evil. God Himself has secrets (Deuteronomy 29:29), and in the Old Testament some of the most desirable things are hidden away in holy places – that is to say, restricted places. There is a time for whispering: Jesus whispers things into the ears of His disciples. But those things are whispered now in order to be shouted out later. In the gospel, Paul says that the great “mystery” or “secret” that Yahweh had held close to his chest for centuries is now revealed. Having secrets, having something “inside” us that doesn’t show on the “outside,” or having something known by an “inside group” that “outsiders” don’t know – this is, perhaps, inherent in our being images of God. The issue with secrets is the issue with all forms of wisdom, especially wisdom in speech. The question is timing and rhythm: Who should know the secret? When? God has perfect timing: In the “fullness of time,” He reveals His secrets, and in doing so turns the world inside out.
A whisperer is full of secrets, and he passes on those secrets to bolster his own reputation, to gather an “inner ring” with him at the center, to stir up contention that will serve some purpose. Think of the member of an administration to leaks information to the press, or think of the writers of gossip columns. They are consummate whisperers.
The focus of verse 22, though, is not so much on the whisperer as on the reaction of those who listen to him. Solomon is not talking about the writers of gossip columns so much as the readers. For his hearers, the whisperer’s secrets are “dainty morsels” that come out of his inner being and go down into the inner being of his hearers. The word for “dainty morsel” is used only here and in the parallel proverb in 18:8, and seems to be derived from a word that means to swallow or gulp down, and also to refer to “greed” or “gluttony.” The word in Hebrew (laham) is perhaps a pun on the word for “bread” (lechem). People are greedy for whispered words; for many, it is as desirable, and as much a staple, as bread.
My friend and colleague Toby Sumpter points out: “These words go down to the ‘chamber room’ of the ‘belly/womb.’ This suggests several implications: First, the words of the whisperer can come to color our ability to judge and reason rightly. If they are allowed to take up residence in our ‘chamber room,’ in our seat of judgment, then they are being invited to be counselors. We are seating them with dignity and honor that they do not deserve. And this can happen with or without our knowledge. Second, the chamber room of the ‘womb’ suggests a pregnancy metaphor. Allowing the words of a whisperer into our ‘womb’ suggests infidelity and promiscuity with the end result of fathering the bastard children of the whisperer. Just as wisdom is justified by her children, folly is damned by hers.”
Two further glosses on this. First, the imagery of “chamber” or “bedchamber” or “inner chamber” depends on a metaphorical connection between a human being and a house. This is an important fundamental metaphor in the Bible, especially worked out in relation to the tabernacle and temple. As the Spirit dwelt in the tabernacle, so now the Spirit dwells in us; as the priests guarded the entry ways to the temple, so we are to put a guard on our eyes, ears, lips, nose, so that nothing defiling enters; as the inner sanctuary of the temple is to be consecrated and clean, so is our heart to be pure. We need to be careful about allowing whispered words into our chambers, because they will have an effect.
Second, the specific part of the inner “house” that these dainties go into is the “belly,” which Toby notes is the same word for “womb.” Words enter our ears, and they implant themselves in our inner chambers, and they produce something. Words fertilize what is in our hearts, and something begins to form. Though he is not talking about language, James uses this kind of conception-birth imagery to describe the process of temptation: We are tempted when we are carried away by our own evil desires, and once desire has conceived it gives birth to sin, and sin in the end produces death (James 1:12-15). That is the death-cycle of sin. Based on this proverb, we could add that the desire is awakened by the words of a whisperer, and these words conceive and give birth to sin. The alternative is to let the word of God dwell in us richly, so that Christ is formed in us (Galatians 4:19). God has whispered his secret into our ears so that, like Mary, we can become full of Christ.
PROVERBS 26:23
The precise force of this comparison becomes evident when we recognize that both sides of the simile are double. On the one hand, there is a “potsherd” covered with “silver dross,” and on the other hand we have “burning lips” and a “heart of evil.” The potsherd is like the evil heart, while the burning lips are like silver dross. On the surface, the point is that covering over the earthiness of a vessel with silver dross makes the pot look finer, but the pot is still a pot of earth and even the silver patina is made from the refuse of silver. So also, burning lips – perhaps passionate speeches or professions – can shine up a wicked heart, but such words do not add anything of value. The wicked heart is still a wicked heart, and by brightening itself with burning words it only adds hypocrisy to its other evils.
Examining the specific wording deepens our grasp of the comparison. Earthen pots are fragile and of low value (Psalm 22:15; Isaiah 45:9), but they also make appropriate symbols for human beings. Human beings are earthenware pots – we are made of earth, and we are large and flexible containers, both physically and spiritually. Physically, we are pots full of organs and blood and fluids, and spiritually we are containers for whatever we let into our inner chambers and whatever is “conceived” in the womb of our hearts (see v. 22). Human beings are created to be earthen vessels that contain a weight of glory (cf. Paul’s use of this image in 2 Corinthians 4:7ff). But the man in the proverb is “earthenware” all the way down, as it were. He is not a container of precious things. The only precious thing he has is the covering of silver, and that’s silver’s dross.
The word for “burning” is sometimes associated with fire, and translated as “kindle” or “inflame” (cf. Isaiah 5:11; Ezekiel 24:10). More often, though, the word means “pursue” (Genesis 31:36; 1 Samuel 17:53), and this notion of “hot pursuit” is sometimes connected with persecution (Psalm 7:13; 10:2; Lamentations 4:19). Persecutors are those who hotly pursue the righteous, seeking to burn and destroy them. Given this usage, the image of “burning lips” connotes lips and words that pursue and persecute. That might suggest lips that express burning love and passion, but it might also be persecuting and pursuing words. The silver dross covering consists of words that flame out, shine, and flash, words that inflame and stir up contention and encourage pursuit of the righteous. Burning lips are themselves ambiguous; one could have a tongue on fire for righteousness, lips purged and burning because they have been lit by a coal from the altar of Yahweh. Or, they could be burning with passion for persecution. Either way, if these burning words are only a drossy covering, they do nothing to improve the wicked heart that produces them.
Finally, the word “lip” is worth musing on for a moment. Though it can refer to speech in general, lips are sometimes associated with religious speech and confession (I am following James Jordan here). Circumcision is sometimes conceived of as being applied to “lips” (Exodus 6:12, 30), and lips are the place where vows emerge (Numbers 30:6, 8, 12; Psalm 89:34; 119:13). If we understand the proverb in this way, the hypocrisy is more precisely religious hypocrisy: Wicked hearts that overlay their wickedness with lips that burn with passionate professions of faith or burn with zeal for eliminating unrighteousness and impurity. Zeal is good, a good fire, but zeal can easily become dross that masks the earthiness and fleshliness of our deepest motives.
PROVERBS 26:24-26
Verses 24-25 describe the same hypocrisy as verse 23, but in more straightforward language. In the Hebrew, the proverb is set out in a parallelism:
In his hating he makes strange his lips
And in his inner parts he sets up deceit.
The hating is thus associated with the inner parts, and the lips express the deceit that is in the inner man.
The verb “disguises” in verse 24 means “to be strange or alien,” and is related to the noun used for “foreigner” or “stranger” (Genesis 17:12, 27; Exodus 12:43; Leviticus 22:25; Deuteronomy 32:12). It is often translated as “know” or “recognize,” but in a few places it has the connotation of “disguise.” The verb is used twice in Genesis 42:7: Joseph “knew” his brothers and “made himself known to them” with rough words; he is disclosing himself, but disclosing himself behind a veil of harsh talk. Or, he “knew” his brothers but “made himself strange” to them by his speech. His words did not express his true feelings; he made himself appear to be an alien, a supercilious Egyptian official. Jeroboam’s wife likewise makes herself strange when she goes to visit the prophet Ahijah (1 Kings 14:5-6). In hating, the man makes his lips a stranger to his heart; but hatred also means that lips speak alienating and strange things.
The second line of the Proverb uses an interesting image. By disjoining lips and inner being, the hater is storing up something in his inner parts, but what he stores up is “deceit.” There is a feedback loop going here: It begins in the inner being, with hatred; in his hatred, a man speaks strange or hypocritical things with his lips; by speaking with his lips, he is storing up something besides hatred in his inner parts, he is storing up fraud and deceit, and this can only reinforce the hypocrisy of his lips. Hatred leads to hypocrisy which leads to more deception. Haters are, in the end, full of deceit – full of lies to others and full of self-deceit. Hatred blinds.
To this analysis of the workings of hatred, Solomon adds a warning not to take the words of a hater at face value. He may make his voice gracious, but the wise man cannot assent to it – he must not pronounce an “Amen.” Underneath the words of grace and compassion is a heart full of abominations. Abomination is a Levitical term that is sometimes associated with the idolatries and impurities that are found in the sanctuaries of Israel. An “abomination of desolation” is an abominable practice that brings desolation to the sanctuary. A man with “seven abominations” in his heart is like a house full of abominations, and he too will be left desolate. Solomon may be alluding back to the seven abominations of Proverbs 6:16-19, and the seven abominations recall also the seven demons that inhabit the man in Jesus’ parable who has been exorcised. Instead of seven abominations, our hearts should be filled with the seven Spirits of the Lord. Seven is number of fullness, and also the number of creation and Sabbath rest. A sevenfold abomination is a de-creating abomination that has found a place to relax in the heart of the hater.
Yet, Solomon doesn’t think that the disguises and lies and strange vestments of the hypocrite and the hater can remain forever. In the congregation, the hater will be “uncovered” and “made naked.” We can comment on this in two directions. First, the verb “uncovered” means, on the surface, that the true motives and desires of haters will be uncovered. But the word is often used for exposure of shame, and particularly with sexual transgression. Shame is defeat and humiliation, not just the emotion of embarrassment. Solomon predicts that the hater cannot maintain his glossy exterior forever. He will be exposed, defeated, ashamed.
Second, this will happen in the “assembly” (Heb. qahal). Typically, this word is used for liturgical assemblies; it is the OT equivalent of ekklesia, church. As Psalms 37 and 73 say, the end of the wicked will be evident at the sanctuary, when the people of God assemble for worship. The word might also refer to a judicial assembly, and thus the hope would be that the hater would be exposed for his deceit and hypocrisy in such an assembly. Ultimately, these two are identical, because the liturgical assembly is an assembly in the presence of the Judge of all, who sifts and winnows in worship.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 12:42 pm
PROVERBS 26:17
Verse 17 returns to the use of dog imagery. We recall that dogs are scavengers in the Bible, feeding on death. Dogs eat flesh and lap up blood. They are greedy, constantly hungry for more (Isaiah 56:11). They tear things to pieces (Matthew 7:6). In short, they are dangerous and wild, not “man’s best friend.”
The setting here seems may be a dogfight in which a man tried to intervene by taking one of the dogs by his head. Given the character of dogs, this is a risk, to say the least. Once he’s got hold of it, he’s in danger whether he holds on or lets go. There’s no good option at that point. Perhaps, though, the setting is of a man who simply walks by and randomly grabs the ears of a dog – that kind of gratuitous trickery will also get you torn to pieces (cf. vv. 18-19).
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, May 1, 2009 at 7:56 am
STRUCTURE
There is a fairly clear chiasm in verses 11-17:
A. Dog returning to vomit, v 11
B. Man wise in his own eyes, v 12
C. Sluggard, vv 13-15
B’. Sluggard wise in his own eyes, v 16
A’. Taking dog by the ears, v 17
Perhaps the chiasm extends further. Verses 10 and 18 share the theme of someone who endangers all around him with a weapon – arrows in the one instance and a firebrand in the second.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, April 17, 2009 at 6:51 am
INTRODUCTION
Many of the proverbs in chapter 26 share the basic form of a simile. Sometimes, as in verse 1, the simile is explicit in the Hebrew text (“like snow in summer” is a literal translation); at other times, the simile is not explicit in Hebrew but is implied in the structure of the verse (v. 7). The specific verses we are examining are framed by references to things that are “unfitting.” Honor is explicitly inappropriate to the fool (v. 1), and though the word “fitting” is not used in verse 9, the implication that a proverb or parable in the mouth of a fool is badly placed. “Fittingness” is an aesthetic criterion, and these verses indicate Solomon’s pervasive assumption that the life of wisdom is a life lived skillfully and artfully. Folly is not only wrong and immoral, but it lacks craftsmanship; it is like dissonant music, like a disproportionate painting or a badly designed building. Folly is an eyesore.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, February 20, 2009 at 10:50 am
INTRODUCTION
This section of Proverbs focuses on issues of image, wealth, work, and treatment of employees (vv. 8-12), and ends with two verses that deal again with the use of the tongue (vv. 13-14). The final verses connect this section to the preceding section of this chapter (12:1-7). Thus, the section on wealth and labor is surrounded by instruction concerning speech. Speech is interwoven with all areas of human life, and the Proverbs manifest this by returning to this theme in a variety of different contexts.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, February 13, 2009 at 12:00 pm
INTRODUCTION
This section of Proverbs 11 highlights several issues. The first two verses treat issues of honesty and dishonesty; verses 3-8 describe the security of the righteous. Verses 9-14 return to various concerns regarding the use of the tongue, which was a theme of the previous chapter.
HONESTY AND HUMILITY
Proverbs 11:1 urges honesty in economic transactions. The balance and the weight refer to the disks that a merchant would use to weigh out goods to determine price. Weights would be marked with a certain value, but dishonest merchants would carry a light and a heavy weight marked with the same value: A 1-pound weight that was more than one point for selling; a 1-pound weight that was less than one pound for buying. If he was buying and selling grain for 2 shekels a pound, he could sell less than one pound of grain for 2 shekels, but buy more than one pound with 2 shekels.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:54 am
INTRODUCTION
Proverbs 10 begins a long central section of Proverbs. This is largely a collection of sayings, labeled “The Proverbs of Solomon” in 10:1. The organization is not random, but it is not obvious. At least one can discern topical categories in this section: speech, wealth, expectations for the future.
Verses 17-32 are divided into several sections (following Waltke). Verse 17 is self-standing. Verses 18-21 concentrate on speech (“lips” appears in vv. 18, 19, 21, and “tongue” in v. 20), and Solomon returns to this theme at the end of the chapter (vv. 31-32: mouth, tongue, lips). Between these sections, verses 22-30 are organized in a parallel pattern:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:52 am
STRUCTURE
This chapter is divided into three main sections, of which we’ll look at the first two. Verses 1-12 form a section that is marked off by the reference to the father-son relationship at the beginning and end (vv. 1, 12). Within this section, Solomon gives a series of six commands to his son (vv. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11), the first and the last (vv. 1, 11) being introduced by the phrase “my son.” Each of the commands is followed either by some supporting promise or by an expansion of the original command. The following chart (taken, with modifications, from Waltke, p. 239) summarizes the overall structure in the following chart:
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:50 am
PROVERBS 25:27
Like Genesis 1-2, this section of Proverbs 25 establishes a rhythm of “good” and then declares something “not good.” “Good” it is to live in the corner of the roof, and “good” news refreshes the soul; but it is “not good” to eat too much honey. Chapters 24-25 are obsessed with honey. Honey is like wisdom (24:13), sweet to the taste. Eat honey, but not too much, lest you vomit (v. 16). And then verse 27, warning again against eating too much honey. Honey is sweet, so is glory. But too much makes you sick. So, don’t eat so much of the pleasures of life that you become sick of them.
According to the NASB translation, the second line is also negative: Just as it is not good to eat too much honey, so it is not good to search after one’s on glory. It’s a warning against pursuing the sweetness of fame and glory, which is just as sickening as eating too much honey. That is an understandable translation, and is certainly wise. How many people who pursue and gain fame later regret it?
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, February 7, 2009 at 5:51 am
PROVERBS 25:23
This verse gives us a translation issue in the first line. The NASB translates the line “The north wind brings forth rain,” but the KJV says that the north wind “drives away rain.” The verb in question has a range of applications and uses, but the basic idea is of twisting or turning. It sometimes refers to a whirling dance (Judges 21:21), sometimes to trembling in fear (Deuteronomy 2:25; Joel 2:6), and, because twisting can also be a method of binding, to strength and stability (in many translations, Psalm 10:5).
It can also mean writhing in anguish or pain, and in these contexts specifically to writhing in the pangs of childbirth (Isaiah 13:8; 23:4; 26:18: 66:7-8). Isaiah 54:1 encourages barren Jerusalem to rejoice in spite of being childless: “break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not labored.” When it means “bring forth,” it continues to have this connotation; that is, it refers to bringing forth through the pain of childbirth. In Proverbs 25:23, the picture is of a twisting, tumultuous north wind giving birth to rain.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, February 6, 2009 at 8:27 am
PROVERBS 24:21-22
Verse 21 begins with an exhortation to “fear” Yahweh and the king. Fear involves respect and honor, but also includes an element of what we call fear. To fear Yahweh is to recognize that He is the one who has power to send both soul and body to hell, to recognize that He is the judge. In associating Yahweh and the king, Solomon is expressing a common biblical link. At various places in the Bible, rulers are called “gods” (Exodus 22:8-9; Psalm 82), using a word (elohim) that is also used of God Himself. Further, the law prohibits, in the same breath, cursing Yahweh and cursing the king (Exodus 22:28). The logic behind this link is twofold: First, that Yahweh is king, and human kings and rulers are images of Yahweh; second, that Yahweh is the one who establishes the powers that be, and therefore dishonoring rulers is tantamount to dishonoring God (Romans 13:1-7).
Two points can be drawn from this.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, December 5, 2008 at 6:30 am
INTRODUCTION
Proverbs 24:10-20 continues, structurally speaking, in the same pattern as the 22:22-24:9. Instead of the two-line Proverbs we find elsewhere, these are small paragraphs, at least four lines long.
24:10-20 returns again and again to situations of distress, attack, battle, and the success of enemies. Verse 10 talks about the “day of distress,” and the following two verses are about intercepting someone who is being led to slaughter. Verse 16 against speaks of calamity, and verses 17-18 are about our attitude toward fallen enemies. Verses 19-20 return to the theme of 24:1, the problem of the success of the wicked and the temptation for the righteous to envy and seek to imitate the wicked.
It is possible that verse 1 and verses 19-20 are intended as a frame around a section. The section is perhaps too divided into ten subsections (if, for instance, we take verse 7 with verses 5-6, or verse 10 with verses 11-12). Perhaps we have another Decalog structure.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, November 14, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Verse 8 returns to some of the concerns of verse 1. Evil men meditate on violence (v. 1), and they also calculate, plot, and deliberately work out how to do evil (v. 8). This, again, is not simple foolishness or naïvete. This is deliberate, planned evil. In some passages the word can refer to artistry, the artistry of those who make the furnishings of the temple and tabernacle (Exodus 26:1; 31:4; 2 Chronicles 26:14). What the Proverb envisions is an artisan of evil, not someone who stumbles into evil.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, November 1, 2008 at 5:56 am
INTRODUCTION
Back in 22:20, Solomon writes that he has written “excellent things” to his son. Waltke, following other commentators, suggests that the word for “excellent” is better understood as a number, thirty. Thus, Solomon asks rhetorically, “Have I not written to you thirty sayings?” Those thirty sayings are contained in the following chapters, from 20:20-21 through 24:21-22. Waltke suggests they are arranged in groups of ten, and the first at least roughly follows the Decalogue. 24:1 begins the 20th saying, the last of the second “Decalogue” of the thirty sayings. Fittingly, it ends with a reference to envy, a theme that matches the tenth of the Ten Words.
Chapter 24 also begins with a fragment of an acrostic structure. Verse 1 begins with the Hebrew aleph, verse 2 with bet, and verse 3 with a gimel – the first letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The alphabetical structure doesn’t continue in this chapter, but this introduction suggests that Solomon is delivering the “ABCs” of wisdom to his son.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, October 31, 2008 at 5:28 am
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 23 departs from the normal style of the book of Proverbs, not only in the fact that the Proverbs in this chapter are lengthier but also in the sense that several of them are more riddling than other portions of Proverbs. At least, so it seems. The first section (vv. 1-3) appears to commend suicide as a solution to being tempted by intimacy with a ruler. Better to cut your own throat than to be seduced by the delicacies of a king’s table. A healthy warning for activist Christians trying to shoulder their way to the king’s table. But the message is not entirely obvious.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, September 6, 2008 at 5:53 am
INTRODUCTION
This section of Proverbs departs from the two-line structure used through much of the book. Instead, these proverbs run to at least two, sometimes several verses. Verses 17-21, for instance, constitute a single section. Verse 18 is connected to verse 17 by the particle “for,” so that verse 18 gives the ground for the exhortation of verse 17. Verse 19 begins with a purpose clause, showing the goal or aim of the instructive given in verses 17-18. Verses 20-21 also go with this section, posing a rhetorical question to the son about the father’s diligence in passing along the wisdom he has acquired.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 6:40 pm
PROVERBS 22:8
Solomon uses agricultural imagery to describe realities of life. Like Paul and Jesus, he says that we reap as we sow. Our actions are always a kind of planting. We are always sowing seed that will come to fruition later on. If we sow righteousness, we will reap eternal life; if we sow iniquity, we reap “vanity,” that is to say, insubstantial nothing.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 11:14 am
PROVERBS 22:3
Like many Proverbs, this one treats wisdom and prudence as a matter of foresight. The imagery is of a pathway along which the prudent and the foolish are walking. The prudent sees trouble/evil ahead, and avoids it, while the naïve simpleton keeps going, stumbles right into trouble, and pays for it.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, June 20, 2008 at 7:44 am
PROVERBS
The verse could be translated, more woodenly, as “Stores desired and oil in the habitation of the wise; but the foolish Adam swallows it.” The verse contrasts the conduct of the wise and of the foolish, and the basic contrast is between the wise man who has things stored in his house and the fool who does not.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 6:26 am
Permission is given to use material on this site, provided the source is cited, blog entries are republished in full, and the author is notified in advance.
