The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from Yahweh.
Parallel Translations
-
The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from Yahweh.
-
The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
-
The preparations of the heart are man's, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.
Cross-references (21)
Passages linked to Proverbs 16:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Proverbs 19:21 There are many plans in a man’s heart, but Yahweh’s counsel will prevail.
- Proverbs 16:9 A man’s heart plans his course, but Yahweh directs his steps.
- Luke 21:14-15 Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.
- Philippians 2:13 For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.
- Proverbs 20:24 A man’s steps are from Yahweh; how then can man understand his way?
- Matthew 10:19-20 But when they deliver you up, don’t be anxious how or what you will say, for it will be given you in that hour what you will say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.
- Luke 12:11-12 When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, don’t be anxious how or what you will answer, or what you will say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that same hour what you must say.”
- Jeremiah 10:23 Yahweh, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
- Proverbs 21:1 The king’s heart is in Yahweh’s hand like the watercourses. He turns it wherever he desires.
- Ezekiel 36:26-27 I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them.
- Jeremiah 32:39-40 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their good, and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from following them, to do them good. I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.
- Exodus 4:11-12 Yahweh said to him, “Who made man’s mouth? Or who makes one mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Isn’t it I, Yahweh? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall speak.”
- Exodus 4:15 You shall speak to him, and put the words in his mouth. I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do.
- Jeremiah 1:7-9 But Yahweh said to me, “Don’t say, ‘I am a child;’ for you must go to whomever I send you, and you must say whatever I command you. Don’t be afraid because of them, for I am with you to rescue you,” says Yahweh. Then Yahweh stretched out his hand, and touched my mouth. Then Yahweh said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.
- James 1:16-18 Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, nor turning shadow. Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
- Ezra 7:27 Blessed be Yahweh, the God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify Yahweh’s house which is in Jerusalem;
- Psalms 119:36 Turn my heart toward your statutes, not toward selfish gain.
- 2 Chronicles 18:31 When the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “It is the king of Israel!” Therefore they turned around to fight against him. But Jehoshaphat cried out, and Yahweh helped him; and God moved them to depart from him.
- Nehemiah 1:11 Lord, I beg you, let your ear be attentive now to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants, who delight to fear your name; and please prosper your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cup bearer to the king.
- Psalms 10:17 Yahweh, you have heard the desire of the humble. You will prepare their heart. You will cause your ear to hear,
- 2 Corinthians 8:16 But thanks be to God, who puts the same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (23 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He derideth the presumption of man, who dare attribute…
He derideth the presumption of man, who dare attribute to himself any thing, as to prepare his heart or such like, seeing that he is not able to speak a word, except God give it him.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man,…
Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, [is] from the LORD.
Ver. 1. The preparations of the heart in man.] He saith not ‘of man’ as if it were in man’s power to dispose of his own heart, but "in man," as wholly wrought by God; for our sufficiency is not in ourselves, but "in him (as we live, so) we move" {Act 17:28} - understand it of the motions of the mind also. It is he that "fashioneth the hearts of men," {Psa 33:13} shaping them at his pleasure. He put small thoughts into the heart of Ahasuerus, but for great purposes. And so he did into the heart of our Henry VIII about his marriage with Katherine of Spain, the rise of that Reformation here, Quam desperasset aetas praeterita, admiratur praesens, obstupescet futura, {a} as Scultetus hath it, which former ages despaired of, the present admireth, and the future shall stand amazed at.
Read full note →
And the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.] For though a man have never so exactly marshalled his matter in hand, as it were in battle array, - as the Hebrew word {b} here imports, and as David, using the same word, saith, he will marshal his prayer, and then be as a spy upon a watch tower to see what became of it, whether he got the day, {Psa 5:3} - though he have set down with himself both what and how to speak, so that it is not only scriptum in animo, sed sculpture etiam, as the orator said, yet he shall never be able to bring forth his conceptions without the obstetrication of God’s assistance. The most eloquent Demosthenes being sent various times in embassy to Philip, king of Macedonia, thrice stood speechless before him, and thrice more forgot what he intended to have spoken. {c} Likewise Latomas of Lovain, a great scholar, having prepared a set speech to be made before the emperor, Charles V, was so confounded when he came to deliver it that he uttered nothing but nonsense, and thereupon fell into a fit of despair. So Augustine, having once lost himself in a sermon, and wanting what else to say, fell upon the Manichees (a point that he had well studied), and by a good providence of God converted one there present, that was infected with that error. Digressions are not always useless. God’s Spirit sometimes draws aside the doctrine to satisfy some soul which the preacher knows not. But though God may force it, yet man may not frame it; and it is a most happy ability to speak punctually, directly, and readily to the point. The Corinthians had elocution as a special gift of God. And St Paul gives God "thanks for them, that in everything they were enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge." {1Co 1:5}
{a} Scult. Annal. dec. 2 ep. dedic.
{b} ערך disponere, ordinare, et aciem instruere, significat.
{c} πρις αφονος εγενετο, τρισακις διελαθε τουτων α λαλειν εσκοπει.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Men can neither think nor speak wisely and well…
Men can neither think nor speak wisely and well of themselves, or without Divine assistance. Or, as many others, both ancient and modern interpreters, render the verse,
The preparations, or dispositions, or orderings of the heart are in or from a man; (i.e. a man may consider and contrive in his own thoughts what he wills or designs to speak; which is spoken by way of concession, yet not excluding man’s dependence upon God therein, which is evident both from many plain texts of Scripture, and from undeniable reason;) but the
Read full note →
answer or speech (as this word is oft used)
of the tongue is from the Lord. Men cannot express their own thoughts without God’s leave and help, and their tongues are oft overruled by God to speak what was besides and above their own thoughts, as he did Balaam, Num 23, and Caiaphas, Joh 11:49-51.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain From the Lord - Men can neither think nor…
From the Lord - Men can neither think nor speak wisely and well without Divine assistance.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Man prepares, but God governs. God has made all…
CHAPTER XVI
Man prepares, but God governs. God has made all things for
Read full note →
himself; he hates pride. The judgments of God. The
administration of kings; their justice, anger, and clemency.
God has made all in weight, measure, and due proportion.
Necessity produces industry. The patient man. The lot is under
the direction of the Lord.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVI
Verse 1. The preparations of the heart in man] The Hebrew is לאדם מערכי לב leadam maarchey leb, which is, literally, "To man are the dispositions of the heart; but from the Lord is the answer of the tongue." Man proposes his wishes; but God answers as he thinks proper. The former is the free offspring of the heart of man; the latter, the free volition of God. Man may think as he pleases, and ask as he lists; but God will give, or not give, as he thinks proper. This I believe to be the meaning of this shamefully tortured passage, so often vexed by critics, their doubts, and indecisions. God help them! for they seldom have the faculty of making any subject plainer! The text does not say that the "preparations," rather dispositions or arrangements, מערכי maarchey, "of the heart," as well as "the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord;" though it is generally understood so; but it states that the dispositions or schemes of the heart (are) man's; but the answer of the tongue (is) the Lord's. And so the principal versions have understood it.
Hominis est animam preparare; et Domini gubernare linguam. - VULGATE. "It is the part of man to prepare his soul: it is the prerogative of the Lord to govern the tongue."
מן בר נש תרעיתא דלבא ומן יי ממללא דלישנא min bar nash taritha delibba; umin yeya mamlala delishana. - CHALDEE. "From the son of man is the counsel of the heart; and from the Lord is the word of the tongue."
The SYRIAC is the same. καρδια ανδρος λογζεσθω δικαια, Ἱνα ὑπο του θεου διορθωθῃ τα διαβηματα αυτῃ. - SEPTUAGINT. "The heart of man deviseth righteous things, that its goings may be directed by God."
The ARABIC takes great latitude: "All the works of an humble man are clean before the Lord; and the wicked shall perish in an evil day." Of a man is to maken redy the inwitt: and of the Lorde to governe the tunge. - Old MS. Bible.
"A man maye well purpose a thinge in his harte: but the answere of the tonge cometh of the Lorde. - COVERDALE.
MATTHEW'S Bible, 1549, and BECKE'S Bible of the same date, and CARDMARDEN'S of 1566, follow Coverdale. The Bible printed by R. Barker, at Cambridge, 4to., 1615, commonly called the Breeches Bible, reads the text thus: - "The preparations of the hart are in man; but the answere of the tongue is of the Lord." So that it appears that our first, and all our ancient versions, understood the text in the same way; and this, independently of critical torture, is the genuine meaning of the Hebrew text. That very valuable version published in Italian, at Geneva, fol. 1562, translates thus: Le dispositioni del cuore sono de l'huomo, ma la risposta del la lingua e dal Signore. "The dispositions of the heart are of man; but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord."
The modern European versions, as far as I have seen, are the same. And when the word dispositions, arrangements, schemes, is understood to be the proper meaning of the Hebrew term, as shown above, the sense is perfectly sound; for there may be a thousand schemes and arrangements made in the heart of man which he may earnestly wish God to bring to full effect, that are neither for his good nor God's glory; and therefore it is his interest that God has the answer in his own power. At the same time, there is no intimation here that man can prepare his own heart to wait upon, or pray unto the Lord; or that from the human heart any thing good can come, without Divine influence; but simply that he may have many schemes and projects which he may beg God to accomplish, that are not of God, but from himself. Hence our own proverb: "Man proposes, but God disposes." I have entered the more particularly into the consideration of this text, because some are very strenuous in the support of our vicious reading, from a supposition that the other defends the heterodox opinion of man's sufficiency to think any thing as of himself. But while they deserve due credit for their orthodox caution, they will see that no such imputation can fairly lie against the plain grammatical translation of the Hebrew text.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Pro 16:1. The preparations of the heart in man,…
Pro 16:1. The preparations of the heart in man, &c. — As we read this verse, it teacheth us a great truth, that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think, or speak, any thing of ourselves, that is wise and good, but all our sufficiency is of God, who is with the heart and with the mouth, and works in us both to will and to do, Php 2:13; Psa 10:17. But most read it otherwise, namely, thus: The preparation of the heart is in man, he may contrive this and the other; but the answer of the tongue — Not only the delivering of what he designed to speak, but the issue and success of what he designed to do; is of the Lord — That is, in short, 1st, Man may purpose; he hath a freedom of thought and of will permitted him; he may form his projects, and lay his schemes as he thinks best; but, after all, 2d, God disposeth; he easily can, and often does, cross man’s purposes, and break his measures: nor can man proceed with success in any undertaking, nor carry into execution any design, without God’s assistance and blessing. It was a curse that was prepared in Balaam’s heart, but the answer of the tongue was a blessing.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain The proverbs in Pro 16:1-7 have, more than any…
The proverbs in Pro 16:1-7 have, more than any other group, an especially religious character impressed upon them. The name of Yahweh as Giver, Guide, Ruler, or Judge, meets us in each of them.
Pro 16:1
Read full note →
Better, The plans of the heart belong to man, but the utterance of the tongue is from Yahweh. Thoughts come and go, as it were, spontaneously; but true, well ordered speech is the gift of God. Compare Pro 16:9.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain The grand question is here decided — ’Who is…
The grand question is here decided — ’Who is the first mover in the work of conversion? Can man prepare his own heart for the grace of God?’ The preparations of the heart in man are from the LORD.†1 He takes the stone out of the heart, that it may feel (Eze 36:26 ); draws it, that it may follow; quickens it, that it may live. He opens the heart, that he may imprint his own law, and mold it into his image. (Act 16:14 . Jer 31:33 .) He works, not merely by moral suasion, or by the bare proposal of means of uncertain power; but by invisible Almighty agency. The work then begins with God. It is not, that we first come, and then are taught. But first we learn; then we come. (Joh 6:45 .) His grace both prevents and co-operates (Art. x.): not working upon a stone, and leaving it in its dead condition; but as when in Paradise he breathed into the lifeless earth a principle of life and energy. (Gen 2:7 .)
Shall we then indolently wait until he works? Far from it. We must work, but in dependence upon him. He works not without us, but with us, through us, in us, by us; and we work in him. (Php 2:13 ; Job 11:13 .) Ours is the duty; his is the strength. Ours the agency; his the quickening life. His commands do not imply our power to obey, but our dependence upon him for grace of obedience. ’The work, as it is a duty, is ours; but as a performance, it is God’s. He gives what he requires, and his promises are the foundation of our performances.’†2 Our works are not the cause, but the effect, of his grace; and never could they come out of us, until God had first put them in us.
Read full note →
The fruit also, as well as the root — the answer of the tongue, no less than the preparation of the heart — is from the LORD. The tongue of the ungodly is under Divine restraint. (Num 22:18 .) And when the Christian’s thoughts are marshaled in due order, does not he depend upon the Lord for utterance? (Eph 6:19 .) Often in prayer, the more we speak, the more we leave unspoken, till the answer of the tongue is fully given, "crying, Abba, Father." (Gal 4:6 .) But the fluency of the tongue without the preparation of the heart; when prayer is without special business; when we read the precious promises, and carry not a word to plead before the throne — this is man’s dead formality; not from the LORD; an abomination in his sight.
This habit of dependence must continue to the end. We can no more prepare ourselves after grace received, than before it.†3 He who "is the Author," must be "the Finisher of faith." (Heb 12:2 .) He is "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" (Rev 1:8 ), in this Almighty work. Our happiness and prosperity is in the humbling acknowledgment of praise — "By the grace of God I am what I am." (1Co 15:10 .) Dependence is not the excuse for indolence, but the spring of active energy.†4
And if man’s reason disputes — ’If God does not give me grace, how can I come?’ — we ask — Did you ever desire, did you ever ask for, grace? If not, how can you complain, that you have never received it? If helplessness is really felt, if it brings conviction, grace is ready to be vouchsafed. "Ask, and it shall be given you." (Mat 7:7 .)
Footnotes:
†1 Psa 10:17. ’From whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed.’ — Liturgy.
†2 Bp. Reynolds’ Works, p. 129.
†3 Isa 26:12. 2Co 3:5 . ’I beg’ — said Jerome — ’that I may receive; and when I have received, I beg again.’
†4 ’Quamvis enim, nisi adjuvante illo, sine quo nihil possumus facere, os non possumus aperire; tamen nos aperimus illus adjumento, et opere nostro.’ — Aug. contra duas Epist. Pelag. ad Bonif. Commentators appear to be much perplexed on the translation of this verse. Many give it, as if the preparations or disposings (marg.) of the heart were in man, but the answer of the tongue from the LORD. But Holden, as the result of a minute and critical examination, has substantially vindicated the received translation.
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain It is the part of man, &c. That is,…
It is the part of man, &c. That is, a man should prepare in his heart and soul what he is to say; but after all, it must be the Lord that must govern his tongue, to speak to the purpose. Not that we can think any thing of good without God’s grace: but after that we have (with God’s grace) thought and prepared within our souls what we would speak; if God does not govern our tongue, we shall not succeed in what we speak. (Challoner) --- He well put into our mouths what we have to say to persecutors, Luke xxi. 14. He often causes us to utter the reverse of what we intended,, as Balaam did, Numbers xxiii. (Menochius) --- The fairest prospects miscarry without God’s blessing. The enemies of grace would infer from this text, that the beginning of salvation depends on free-will. But St. Augustine (con. 2. epist. Pelag. ii. 8.) has solidly refuted them, and Solomon does not mean that man acts alone, chap. viii. 35., (Septuagint) John xv. 5., and 2 Corinthians iii. 5. "Man," says St. Augustine, "does no good things, which God does not cause him to perform." (Calmet) --- The Scripture cannot contradict itself. A fresh grace is requisite to execute what God has enabled us to devise, ver. 9. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain 2. Admonition to a walk in the fear of…
2. Admonition to a walk in the fear of God and obedience
Pro_16:1 to Pro_22:16
Read full note →
α) Admonition to trust in God as the wise Ruler and Governor of the world
Chap. 16
1 Man’s are the counsels of the heart,
but the answer of the tongue is Jehovah’s.
2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
but Jehovah weigheth the spirits.
3 Commit thy works to Jehovah,
so will thy plans be established.
4 Jehovah hath made every thing for its end,
even the wicked for the day of evil.
5 An abomination to Jehovah is every one who is proud in heart,
assuredly he will not go unpunished.
6 By mercy and truth is iniquity atoned,
and through the fear of Jehovah one departeth from evil.
7 If Jehovah hath pleasure in the ways of a man,
he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
8 Better is a little with righteousness,
than great revenues without right.
9 Man’s heart deviseth his way,
but Jehovah directeth his steps.
10 Decision belongeth to the lips of the king,
in judgment his mouth speaketh not wickedly.
11 The scale and just balances belong to Jehovah,
His work are all the weights of the bag.
12 It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness,
for by righteousness is the throne established.
13 A delight to kings are righteous lips,
and he that speaketh uprightly is loved.
14 The wrath of a king (is as) messengers of death,
but a wise man appeaseth it.
15 In the light of the king’s countenance is life,
and his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain.
16 To gain wisdom—how much better is it than gold!
and to attain understanding to be preferred to silver!
17 The path of the upright departeth from evil;
he preserveth his soul that giveth heed to his way.
18 Before destruction cometh pride,
and before a fall a haughty spirit.
19 Better is it to be humble with the lowly,
than to divide spoil with the proud.
20 He that giveth heed to the word findeth good,
and he who trusteth Jehovah, blessed is he!
21 The wise in heart shall be called prudent,
and grace on the lips increaseth learning.
22 Understanding is a fountain of life to him that hath it,
but the correction of fools is folly.
23 The heart of the wise maketh his mouth wise,
and increaseth learning upon his lips.
24 As honey of the comb are pleasant words,
sweet to the soul and health to the bones.
25 There is a way that seemeth right to man,
but its end are ways of death.
26 The spirit of the laborer laboreth for him,
for his mouth urgeth him on.
27 A worthless man searcheth after evil,
and on his lips is as it were scorching fire.
28 A perverse man sendeth abroad strife,
and a backbiter separateth friends.
29 A violent man enticeth his neighbor,
and leadeth him in a way that is not good.
30 Shutting his eyes to devise mischief,
biting his lips, he bringeth evil to pass.
31 A crown of glory is the hoary head;
in the way of righteousness it shall be found.
32 He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.
33 The lot is cast into the lap,
but from Jehovah is all its decision.
GRAMMATICAL AND CRITICAL
Pro_16:1.—In מֵיְהוָֹה the מִן stands as simply synonymous with the ל auctoris of the first clause.
Pro_16:3.—[A masc. verb agreeing with the fem., subject מַחְשְׁבֹתֶיךָ, which is less unnatural where the verb precedes; see Bött., § 936, a.—A.]
Pro_16:4.—[לַמַּעֲנֵהוּ distinguished by the article and the daghesh as the noun מַעֲנֶה with preposition and suffix, and not the comp. preposition לְמַעָן with a suffix. See Green, Heb. Gram., § 246, 2, a.—A.]
Pro_16:7.—[יַשְׁלִם, Hiph. Imperf. written defective. Bött. suggests the proper reading as יַשְׁלֵם “absimilated” from the following אִ. See § 1013.—A.]
Pro_16:13.—[Ordinarily feminine forms of adjectives are employed in Hebrew to supply the lack of neuter and abstract forms. Occasionally as in יְשָׁרִים masc. forms are used in elevated Style. See Bött., § 707, 2.—A.]
Pro_16:16.—[Both the masc. and fem., forms of the Infin. constr. are here used, קְנֹה and קְנוֹת, but with a masc. predicate, the Niph. part. נִבְחָר, which has here the meaning of the Latin part. in dus. Bött., § 990, 3, ß, and 997, 2, c.—A.] For examples of the form קְנֹה comp. Pro_21:3; Pro_31:4.
Pro_16:19.—שְׁפַל in שְׁפָל־רוּחַ is here probably not to be regarded as the adjective, as in Pro_29:23; Isa_57:15 (so Bertheau, Elster, and others regard it), but an Infinitive, which is therefore equivalent to humiliari (Vulgate, comp. Ewald, Umbreit, Hitzig, etc.) For in the second clause an Infin. is the corresponding term: חַלֵּק שָׁלָל, “to divide spoil;” comp. with this Isa_53:12. [Fuerst, however (Lex., sub verbo), pronounces decidedly in favor of the adjective construction. Bött. regards it as an Infin., § 987, 5, a.—A.]
Pro_16:20.—הִשְׁכִּיל appears in Neh_8:13 construed with אֶל instead of עַל; compare, however, for this interchange of אל and על chaps. Pro_29:5; Jer_6:10; Jer_6:19, etc.
Pro_16:27.—[שְׂפָתיוֹ is one of the few instances in which in the Masoretic punctuation a dual or plural form is disregarded in the vocalization of the suffix. Cases of the opposite kind are not rare. Bött., § 886, c. The LXX conform to the K’thibh.—A.]
Pro_16:28.—נִרְגְּן (ψίθυρος, Sir_5:14), is cognate with נָרָג, a verb which in the Arabic means susurro, to whisper.
Pro_16:30.—עָצָה, related to עָצַם, clausit, is found only here in the Old Testament. [It is a gesture accompanying and expressive of crafty scheming; Fuerst, s. v.]
Pro_16:33.—For the impersonal use of the passive יוּטַל with the accusative, comp. Gen_4:18; Gen_17:6; Jos_7:15; Psa_72:15, etc.
EXEGETICAL
1. Pro_16:1-3. Of God as the wise disposer and controller of all things in general.—Man’s are the counsels of the heart, but the answer of the tongue is Jehovah’s.—The “answer of the tongue” might indeed of itself signify the answer corresponding to the tongue, i.e., the supplicating tongue, and so denote “the granting of man’s request” (Elster, comp. Umbreit, Bertheau, etc.) But since the heart with its hidden plans and counsels (lit., “arrangements:” מַעַרָכִים equivalent to the more common fem. מַעַרָכות), is here plainly contrasted with the tongue as the instrument in the disclosure of such plans (comp. Pro_10:8; Pro_14:20, and numerous exx.), therefore the “answer of the tongue” must here be “the movement and utterance of the tongue,” and Jehovah comes into the account as the giver of right words, from which health and life go forth, as the dispenser of the wholesome “word in due season” (Pro_15:23); comp. Mat_10:19-20; also Rom_8:26; 2Co_3:5. Luther therefore renders correctly “But from the Lord cometh what the tongue shall speak;” in general Hitzig is also right, except that he would unnecessarily read “to” Jehovah לַי׀ instead of מֵי׀, and so thinks too exclusively of Jehovah merely as the judge of the utterances of man’s tongue. The idea “Man proposes, God disposes” (der Mensch denkt, Gott lenkt), forms moreover quite as naturally the proper subject of discourse in the verse before us, as below in Pro_16:9; Pro_16:33. [Our English version sacrifices entirely the antithetic nature and force of the verse.—A.]
Pro_16:2. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, i.e., according to his own judgment, comp. Pro_12:15. Lit., “something clean;” comp. Ewald, Lehrb., § 307, c.—But Jehovah weigheth the spirits, i.e., he tries them, not literally ponderable, with reference to their moral weight; he wishes to test their moral competence. The “ways” and the “spirits” here stand contrasted as the outward action and the inward disposition; comp. 1Sa_16:7. In the parallel passage, Pro_21:2, “hearts” (לִבּוֹת) occurs instead of “spirits” (רוּחוֹת) (compare also Pro_21:12) and “right” (יָשָׁר) instead of “clean” (זַךְ).
Pro_16:3. Commit thy works to Jehovah.—For this phrase to “roll something on some one,” i.e., to commit and entrust it wholly to him, comp. Psa_22:8 (9), also Psa_37:5 (where עַל is used instead of אֶל, “upon” instead of “to”).—So will thy plans be established,—i.e., thy thoughts and purposes, those according to which thou proposest to shape thy “works,” will then have a sure basis and result. Comp. Pro_19:21; Psa_90:17.
2. Pro_16:4-9. God’s wise and righteous administration in respect to the rewarding of good and the punishment of evil.—Jehovah hath made everything for its end.—The noun מַעֲנֶה here signifies, not “answer,” as in Pro_16:1, or in Pro_15:1; Pro_15:23; but in general that which corresponds with the thing, the end of the thing. The suffix refers back to the “all, all things.” The Vulgate renders “propter semet ipsum,” but this would have לְמַעֲנוֹ. [See critical notes. Bertheau, Kamph., De W., N., S., M., etc., agree with our author in the interpretation which is grammatically most defensible, and doctrinally least open to exception. An absolute Divine purpose and control in the creation and administration of the world is clearly announced, and also the strength of the bond that joins sin and misery.—A.]—Even the wicked for the day of evil, i.e., to experience the day of evil, and then to receive His well merited punishment. It is not specifically the day of final judgment that is directly intended (as though the doctrine here were that of a predestination of the ungodly to eternal damnation, as many of the older Reformed interpreters held), but any day of calamity whatsoever, which God has fixed for the ungodly, whether it may overtake him in this or in the future life. Comp. the “day of destruction,” Job_21:30; the “day of visitation,” Isa_10:3. [Holden’s rendering “even the wicked He daily sustains,” is suggested by his strong aversion to the doctrine of reprobation, but is not justified by the use of the Hebrew phrase, or by the slightest requirement or allowance in the parallelism. Liberal interpreters like Noyes find not the slightest reason for following him.—A.]
Pro_16:5. With clause a compare Pro_15:9; Pro_15:25-26; with b, Pro_11:21.—In regard to the two verses interpolated by the LXX (and Vulgate) after Pro_16:5, see Hitzig on this passage.
Pro_16:6. By mercy and truth is iniquity atoned.—“Mercy and truth” here unquestionably, as in Pro_3:3 (where see notes), describes a relation of man to his neighbor, and not to God, as Bertheau maintains (see in reply to his view especially Hoffmann’s Schriftbew., I., 518 sq.). [Nor is it God’s mercy and truth, as Holden suggests]. Loving and faithful conduct towards one’s neighbor is, however, plainly not in and of itself named as the ground of the expiation of sin, but only so far forth as it is a sign and necessary expression of a really penitent and believing disposition of heart, and so is a correlative to the fear of God, which is made prominent in the second clause; just as in the expression of Jesus with reference to the sinning woman; Luk_7:47; or as in Isa_58:7; Dan_4:24, etc.—One departeth from evil, lit., “there is remaining far from evil,” i.e., this is the result: so Pro_16:17.—“Evil” is here according to the parallelism moral evil (not misfortune, calamity, in conformity with Pro_16:4; Pro_16:27, as Hitzig holds). This is however mentioned here with an included reference to its necessary evil results and penalties; therefore, if one chooses, it is evil and calamity together; comp. Pro_16:17.—With Pro_16:7 compare Pro_25:21-22, where as means to the conciliation of enemies there is mentioned the personal loving disposition of the man involved, who here appears as an object of the divine complacency.—With Pro_16:8 comp. Pro_15:16; with clause b in particular, Pro_13:23.
Pro_16:9. Man’s heart deviseth his way. The Piel of the verb here denotes a laborious consideration, a reflecting on this side and that.—But Jehovah directeth his steps. He determines them, gives them their direction, guides them (comp. notes on Pro_16:1, b). Umbreit, Bertheau, Ewald, Elster, [Noyes, Stuart,] “he makes them sure.” But then another conjugation (Pilel, יְכוֹנֵן) would probably have been necessary, as in Psa_37:23. For the Hiphil comp. moreover Jer_10:23.
3. Pro_16:10-15. Of kings as intermediate agents or instruments in God’s wise administration of the world.—A divine decision belongeth to the lips of the king. קֶסֶם, oracular decision or prediction, here used in a good sense of a divine utterance (effatum divinum; comp. in the Vulg., divinatio). As representative of Jehovah, the supreme ruler and judge, a king, and especially the theocratic king of Israel, speaks words of divine validity and dignity (comp. Psa_82:6; Joh_10:34), which give an absolutely certain decision, particularly in contested judicial questions. Therefore that continues true which the second clause asserts: In judgment his mouth doth not speak wickedly. “He deceives not, sins not” is not possibly, a wish (“his mouth should not err in judgment,” Umbreit, Bertheau), but “the passage rather lays down the principle: the King can do no wrong, in a narrower assertion of it, and with this difference, that it is here no political fiction, but a believing conviction. Righteousness at least in the final resort was under the theocratic monarchy of the Old Testament so absolute a demand of the idea, that one could not conceive it to be unrealized” (Hitzig). [We have here the theory of the king’s relations and obligations, and a clear statement of the presumptions of which he should, according to the divine order, have the benefit. These must be clearly overthrown by him, before the people are entitled to set them aside. Comp. Rom_13:1-2. Had this proverb been penned near the end, instead of near the beginning of the Jewish theocracy, it would have been difficult to avoid the suggestion that the ideal and the actual are often strangely, sharply at variance.—A.].
Pro_16:11. The scale and just balances belong to Jehovah. The proposition expresses the idea of an ownership in Jehovah as the first cause: for like agriculture (Sir_7:15) God instituted weights and measures, as an indispensable ordinance and instrument in just business intercourse.—His works are all the weights of the bag. His weights the oriental merchant (in Persia, e.g., even at the present day) is wont to carry in a bag; comp. Deu_25:13; Mic_6:11. Stones were in preference employed as weights because they do not wear away so easily, as iron, e.g., which from rusting easily changes its weight. Comp. Umbreit on this passage. Bertheau is quite too artificial. “His work is all of it stones of the bag,” i.e., is as sharply and accurately defined “as the smallest and finest weights (?).”
Pro_16:12-13. Two verses closely connected, expressing a single truth, which is brought out first negatively and then positively.—It is an abomination to kings to commit iniquity; i.e., injustice practised or at least attempted by their subjects is an abomination to them, representing, as they do, God and divine justice. Comp. Pro_16:10, and with clause b also especially Pro_25:5.—And he that speaketh uprightly is loved. For this use of the plur. masc. of יֶשֶׁר, upright, which is therefore “upright things, uprightness,” comp. Dan_11:17; also Job 4:25.—The verb יֶאֱהָֽב is either to be taken with an indefinite subject, “him one loveth,” i.e., he is loved (Umbreit, Elster, etc.), or distributively, “him he loveth,” i.e., whoever is king for the time being.
Pro_16:14-15. Verses in like manner closely connected, and essentially expressing but one thought.—The wrath of the king (is as) messengers of death. This plural in the predicate of the sentence hints that when the king is enraged manifold means and instruments stand at his command for the immediate destruction of the object of his wrath. Remember the despotism and the capricious arbitrariness of Oriental sovereigns, and compare Pro_19:12; Pro_20:2; Ecc_8:3-4.—In the light of the King’s countenance is life. The “friendly countenance,” lit. “light of the countenance,” as in Psa_4:6 (7), is contrasted with the “wrath” Pro_16:14, a, as also are “life” and “ death.”—As a cloud of the latter rain. The harvest rain or latter rain (Vulg., imber serotinus) is a rain falling shortly before the harvest, in March or April, whose timely and abundant occurrence is indispensable to the success of Eastern harvests, especially so in Palestine; comp. Pro_11:14; Jer_3:3; Jer_5:24; and particularly Job_29:23-24, which latter passage is here a general parallel. [See Thomson’s Land and Book, I. 130, II. 66].
Pro_16:16-26. Of God’s righteous administration in respect to the wise and the foolish.—To gain wisdom—how much better is it than gold, i.e., than the acquisition of gold; compare, for an example of this abbreviated comparison (comparatio decurtata) Job_28:8; Psa_4:7 (8), etc. For the general sentiment of the ver. compare Pro_3:14; Pro_8:10-11; Pro_8:19.
Pro_16:17. The path (the raised, well-graded road מְסִלָּה) of the upright departeth from evil, lit. “is abiding far (to abide far) from evil,” as in Pro_16:6; comp. also Pro_10:17; Pro_11:5; Pro_11:20.—Hitzig expands the verse by four clauses which he introduces from the LXX, and in such an order that the second clause of the Masoretic text is separated from the first by three of the inserted clauses, and a sixth is appended as a final clause. Yet he fails to give satisfactory proof that this expanded form was the original, three verses being now represented by one.
Pro_16:18. Comp. Pro_15:25; Pro_15:33.—The word here rendered “fall” (כִּשָּׁלוֹן, tottering, downfall) is used only in this passage in the Old Testament.—With respect to the sentiment of the ver. compare also the Arabic proverb, “The nose is in the heavens, the seat in the mire ” (Nasus in cœlo est, nates in fimo), and the expression of Horace “… feriuntque summos fulgura montes (Odes, II. x. 11, 12).
[…… And ever, where
The mountain’s summit points in air,
Do bolted lightnings flash.’ ’
—Theo. Martin’s Translation.]
Pro_16:19. Better is it to live humbly with the lowly. עֲנִיִּים. (with which reading of the K’thibh the LXX agrees, while the K’ri reads עֲנָוִים) describes those who are bowed down by troubles, the sufferers, the lowly; comp. Zec_9:9.
Pro_16:20. He that giveth heed to the word frindeth good, i.e., naturally, to the word of God, the word par excellence; comp. Pro_13:13.—With the expression “findeth good, or prosperity,” comp. Pro_17:20; Pro_19:8. “Blessed is he!” (אַשְׁרָיו) comp. Pro_14:21.
Pro_16:21. The wise in heart shall be called prudent, understanding, knowing, a possessor of בִּינָה, discernment. Comp. Pro_14:33.—And grace on the lips (lit. “of lips”) increaseth learning, i.e., secures for learning an easy access in ever widening circles, comp. 23, b. The “grace” or literally the “sweetness” of the lips is here represented as a necessary attendant and helper of wisdom, as in Pro_15:2.
Pro_16:22. A fountain of life is understanding to him that hath it, lit. “is the wisdom of its possessor.” The thought is here in the first instance unquestionably of the blessing which comes directly to the possessor from his wisdom, and not of its life-dispensing, life-promoting influence on others, as Bertheau thinks. For this figure of a “fountain of life” compare Pro_10:11; Pro_13:14; Pro_14:27.—But the correction of fools is folly. The subject, according to the antithetic parallelism, is “folly,” as “wisdom” is in clause a. The meaning can be no other than this: the folly of fools is for them a source of all possible disadvantages and adversities; the lack of reason is its own punishment (comp. Hitzig on this passage). [So N. and W., while H., M., and S. give to מוּסָר its active meaning, “the instruction of fools,” i.e., that which they give, “is folly.”—A.].
Pro_16:23. Comp. remarks on Pro_16:21.—And increaseth learning upon his lips. “Upon his lips,” so far forth as the word that comes from the heart rests on the lips, comp. Pro_16:27; Psa_16:4; and also the expression “on the tongue,” Psa_15:3 [where the original expresses more than mere instrumentality (with the tongue); “ who beareth not slander on his tongue” (Hupfeld, on the passage), etc.—A.].
Pro_16:24. As honey of the comb are pleasant words, lit. “words of loveliness,” as in Pro_15:26.—For a like reference to the “honey-comb” see Psa_19:10 (11).—Sweet to the soul. The adj. מָתוֹק, for which we might expect the plural is to be regarded as a neuter used substantively; something sweet, sweetness; comp. Eze_3:3, and also Pro_16:2 above.
Pro_16:25. Literally identical with Pro_14:12;—stricken out by Hitzig from the passage before us, because it is superfluous in the group (Pro_16:22-30) assumed to consist of eight only (?).—
Pro_16:26. The spirit of the laborer laboreth for him, i.e., supports him in his labor, impels him to greater perseverance and exertion to gain his daily bread. [Zöckler renders “the hunger,” etc. So Kamphausen. This seems to us unnecessary. נֶפֶשׁ is often the animal soul or spirit as distinguished from the higher intellectual, moral and religious nature. It is this spirit that feels the pressure of life’s necessities, and impels to effort for their relief; comp. Pro_10:3, etc.—A.].—For his mouth urgeth him on, i.e., as it longs for food. This verb (construed with עַל and the accus. of the person) denotes, according to Arabic analogies “to heap a load or burden on one” (comp. אֵכֶף, a weight, burden, Job_33:7) [E. V. “be heavy upon thee”]; and here specifically, to bind one, to drive and force him to do something” (Vulg., compulit).—With the general sentiment compare Ecc_6:7.
5. Pro_16:27-33. A new delineation of God’s justice in punishing the wicked and rewarding the pious. Pro_16:27-30 form here one connected description of the ungodly, nefarious conduct of the evil men on whom God’s judgment falls. Pro_16:31-32 contrast with these wicked men the upright and the gentle in spirit as the only happy men; Pro_16:33 is a general conclusion pointing us back to the beginning of the chapter.
Pro_16:27. A worthless man (“man of Belial”) searcheth after evil, literally “diggeth evil, shovels out evil for himself,” i.e., from the pit which he prepares for others, to destroy them (comp. Pro_26:27; Jer_18:20 sq.). For this expression “man of Belial” compare Pro_6:12.—On his lips is as it were scorching fire (comp. Pro_16:23). The words of the worthless man are here on account of their desolating effects, compared to a blazing or scorching fire (comp. Eze_21:3; Pro_26:23; Job_31:12; Jam_3:5 sq.).
Pro_16:28. With clause a compare Pro_6:14; Pro_6:19.—And a backbiter separateth friends, lit. “divideth off the friend.” The singular is not here used collectively, but in a certain sense distributively; “divideth a friend from his fellow.” So in Pro_17:9; comp. Pro_19:4.—For the use of נִרְגָּן, “backbiter” comp. Pro_18:8; Pro_26:20; Pro_26:22.
Pro_16:29. With clause a compare Pro_3:31; Pro_1:10 sq. With b compare Psa_36:4 (5); Isa_65:2.—[Rueetschi (as above cited, p. 145) thinks these verses (27–29) more expressive if in each the first words are regarded as the predicates, prefixed for emphasis and stronger contrast; “a worthless man is he, etc.;” “a perverse, contentious man is he, etc.,” “a backbiter is he, etc.;” “a man of violence is he, etc.;” although he may excuse his conduct as mere sport.—A.].
Pro_16:30 describes more precisely, by two participial clauses which belong to the “man of violence” in Pro_16:29, the way in which this wicked man executes the ruin which he devises.—Shutting his eyes to devise mischief, lit. “to meditate craftiness;” comp. Pro_2:12, Pro_6:14.—Biting his lips. With this description, “pressing in, pressing together his lips,” comp. Pro_6:13; Pro_10:10, where this verb is used of the corresponding action with the eyes.
Pro_16:31. With clause a comp. Pro_4:19; Pro_20:29; with b, Pro_4:10 sq., Pro_3:2.
Pro_16:32. With a compare Pro_14:29.—And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. רוּחַ here not merely the spirit or the soul, but the temper, the passionate movement and excitement of the spirit. Comp. Pirke Aboth cap. Pro_4:1, where the question, Who is after all the true hero? is answered by a reference to the proverb of Solomon now before us. The Lord, moreover, in Mat_5:5, promises to the meek that they shall inherit the earth.
Pro_16:33. The lot is cast into the lap. Hitzig: “In the bosom the lot is shaken,” a rendering which does indeed conform more closely to the import of חֵיק, “the bosom of the clothing,” but to us who are not Orientals gives a meaning easily misunderstood. For we are wont to call the doubled or folded front of the dress the “lap.”—But from Jehovah is (cometh) all its decision, the final judicial sense as it were, (“judgment,” comp. Num_27:21) in which the result of the lot is reached. Comp. Pro_18:18, where, however, the discourse is specifically limited to the settling of judicial disputes by lot, while here attention is evidently directed to lots in general (and therefore to cases like Jos_7:19; 1Sa_14:37 sq., Num_16:8; Psa_22:18 (19), etc.)
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
A course of thought running with any unity through the entire chapter it is here again impossible to detect. Only small groups of connected proverbs stand forth here and there from the general level; e.g., Pro_16:1-3, Pro_16:10-15, Pro_16:27-30 (comp. especially the remarks on Pro_16:27 sq.). Hitzig’s endeavor to develop here and in the two following chapters i.e., in general terms throughout the section Pro_15:33 to Pro_19:2), symmetrically constructed groups of eight verses each, is quite as unsuccessful as his similar assumptions in respect to the construction of the general division, chap. 10–22:16, on definite numerical principles (comp. above, remarks on Pro_10:1 sq.; and on Pro_13:1).
A decided pre-eminence belongs in the chapter, as it is now defined, to the idea that God controls the action of man altogether according to His own wise judgment and good pleasure. That “man proposes but God disposes,”—this truth which summons to humble confidence in God, and a childlike and unconditional surrender to the fatherly guidance of the Lord’s hand, stands at the head of the section as a whole (Pro_16:1), with a special emphasizing of the divine influence exerted over the manner and the results of human speech. It recurs again in Pro_16:10-15 before the connected delineation of the authority of human kings, as counterparts and representatives of the great King of heaven; and here there is special reference not to the speech but to the action of men (Pro_16:9). Finally it forms the conclusion of the chapter, and that in the form of a reference to the supreme control which God holds in His hand over the lot as any where employed by men (Pro_16:33). It is the doctrine of the divine government of the world (the gubernatio, with its four prominent forms or methods, permissio, impeditio, directio and determinatio); or again the doctrine of the divine co-operation with the free self-determined acts of men (the concursus as it exists tam ad bonas quam ad malas actiones hominum [with reference both to the good and to the evil actions of men]), that is asserted in these propositions and developed in various directions. Especially does the intermediate place which human kings and judges assume as representatives of the divine justice, and in a certain sense prophets of the divine will (Pro_16:10), also as typically gods on earth (Pro_16:13-15; comp. Psa_82:6), in their relation to the destiny of individual men, stand out in a significant prominence; it thus affords instructive premonition of the exhortations of the New Testament to obedience to the magistrates who stand in God’s place,—such as are found in Mat_22:21; Rom_13:1 sq.; 1Pe_2:17, etc. Compare what Melanchthon observes on Pro_16:10 sq.; “These words affirm that the whole political order, magistrates, laws, distinctions in authority, contracts, judgments, penalties are works ordained by the wisdom of God within the human race. Therefore since we know that political order is God’s work, let us love it, and seek to maintain it by our duty, and in modesty obey it for God’s sake, and let us render thanks to God the preserver, and let us know that the madness of devils and of men who disturb the political order is displeasing to God, etc.”
Other ethical truths to which a significant prominence is given are contained particularly in
Pro_16:6. A reference to the fear of God, and penitent and believing consecration to God as the only way to the development of genuine fruits of love and of righteousness (see notes on this passage).
Pro_16:20. Combined view of the two chief requisites to a really devout life; 1) obedience to the word of God, and 2) inspiring confidence in God.
Pro_16:21; Pro_16:23 (comp. also Pro_16:24). The stress laid on the great value of an eloquent mouth, as an appropriate organ for a wise heart exercising itself in the service of the Lord.
Pro_16:32. Reference to gentleness of spirit and the ruling of one’s own passions, as the best and surest means to the attainment of real power and greatness—an expressive Biblical testimony against all uncharitable advancement of self in the way of strife, and against the combative spirit of brawlers and duellists.
[Andrew Fuller: The doctrine of verse 7 stands in apparent contradiction with 2Ti_3:12. The truth seems to be that neither of the passages is to be taken universally. The peace possessed by those who please God does not extend so far as to exempt them from having enemies, and though all godly men must in some form or other be persecuted, yet none are persecuted at all times. The passage from Timothy may therefore refer to the native enmity which true godliness is certain to excite, and the proverb to the Divine control over it.]
HOMILETIC AND PRACTICAL
Homily on the chapter as a whole; Of God’s wise and righteous government of the world, as it is exhibited 1) in the life of men in general (1–9); 2) in the action and administration of earthly rulers (10–15); 3) in the endeavors and results of human wisdom (16–26); 4) in the righteous retribution which awaits both, the good and the evil (27–33).—Stöcker: On God’s gracious care for men. 1) Proof that such a paternally upholding and governing providence of God over men exists, a) in general (Pro_16:1-9); b) through the government of the world in particular (10–15). 2) The duties of the pious in recognition of this paternal providence and government of God (Pro_16:16-33).—Wohlfarth:—On the providence and government of God, and man’s duty. Man proposes, God disposes,—usually otherwise than we devise and desire, but always more gloriously and better than we could do. Hence humility, prudence and trust in God are the chief duties of man in return.
Pro_16:1-3. Melanchthon:—It is well to consider that our resolves are a different thing from their success. That we may form successful and salutary resolutions we need God’s aid in two forms; in examining the different possible ways, and then in conforming our course to them. We must therefore at all times be of this firm purpose, to let our whole life be ruled by God’s word, and for all things to invoke God’s help.—Geier (on Pro_16:1): Teachers, preachers and rulers especially must call earnestly on God for the careful government and sanctification of their tongue, in order that in the fulfilment whether of their public or their private duties the right word may always stand at their command, and nothing unseemly or injurious may escape them.—(On Pro_16:3): The duties of our calling we must indeed fulfil with fidelity and diligence, but yet in all patience await from the Lord blessing and success.—Berleb. Bible: If one is not able without God to utter a word that one has already conceived, how much less will one be able to bring any thing to pass without God’s aid. And how much more will this be true within the sphere of the spiritual life, since man is wholly “insufficient of himself to think any thing as of himself” (2Co_3:5), but must receive all from the Lord, etc.—[Arnot (on Pro_16:2): The human heart is beyond conception cunning in making that appear right which is felt pleasant. The real motive power that keeps the wheels of life going round is this: men like the things that they do, and do the things that they like.]
Pro_16:4-9. Würt. Bible (on Pro_16:4): God’s providence extends over good and wicked men (Mat_5:45); through His ordaining it comes to pass that the ungodly are punished in their time and as they deserve.—Von Gerlach (on Pro_16:4): The wicked man also fulfils God’s design, when the day of calamity comes upon him; all without exception must serve Him.—[Charnock (on Pro_16:4): If sin ends in any good, it is only from that Infinite transcendency of skill that can bring good out of evil, as well as light out of darkness.—Waterland (on Pro_16:4): God bridles the wicked by laws and government and by the incessant labors of good men; and yet more immediately by His secret power over their hearts and wills, and over all their faculties; as well as over all occurrences and all second causes through the whole universe; and if He still affords them compass enough to range in, yet notwithstanding He rules over them with so strong and steady a hand, that they cannot move a step but by His leave, nor do a single act but what shall be turned to good effect.—Beveridge (on Pro_16:4): God in His revelations hath told us nothing of the second causes which He hath established under Himself for the production of ordinary effects, that we may not perplex ourselves about them, but always look up to Him as the first cause, as working without them or by them as He sees good. But He hath told us plainly of the final cause or end of all things, that we may keep our eyes always fixed on that, and accordingly strive all we can to promote it.—Bp. Hall (on Pro_16:6): It is not an outward sacrifice that God regards in His remission of the punishment of our sin; but when He finds mercy to the poor, and uprightness of heart towards Himself and men, then He is graciously pleased to forbear His judgments; inasmuch as these graces, being wrought in us by His Spirit, cannot but proceed from a true faith whereby our sins are purged.—Bonar (on Pro_16:6): Forgiveness, ascertained forgiveness, conscious forgiveness, this is the beginning of all true fear. This expels a world of evil from the human heart and keeps it from re-entrance. It works itself out in such things as these—obedience, fellowship, love, zeal].—Starke (on Pro_16:6): Not of merit but of grace are the sins of the penitent forgiven for Christ’s sake. One of the chief fruits of justification is, however, the exhibition of fidelity and truth towards one’s neighbors (Eph_2:8-9; Eph_4:25).—(On Pro_16:7): Think not that thou wilt thyself subdue and overcome thine enemies, but only seek to have God for thy friend; He can of all thy foes make thee friends.—[Bates (on Pro_16:7): Many sins are committed for the fear of the anger of men, and presumption of the mercy of God; but it is often found that a religious constancy gains more friends than carnal obsequiousness.—Trapp (on Pro_16:7): When God is displeased, all His creatures are up in arms to fetch in His rebels, and to do execution. At peace with Him, at peace with the creature too, that gladly takes His part, and is at His beck and check].—Zeltner (on Pro_16:9): Be presumptuous in none of thy schemes, but thinking of thine own weakness put as the foundation of every undertaking “if the Lord will ” (Jam_4:15).—[Arnot (on Pro_16:9): The desires of human hearts and the efforts of human hands go into the processes of providence and constitute the material on which the Almighty works.]
Pro_16:10-15. Melanchthon; comp. Doctrinal and Ethical notes.—Starke (on Pro_16:10): For the right conduct of the office of ruler and judge it is not enough to understand well secular laws and rights; Divine wisdom is also absolutely essential.—(On Pro_16:12): Kings are not only not to do evil, or to let it be done by others with impunity; they are to hate and abhor it with all energy.—Von Gerlach (on Pro_16:11): Weight and measure as the invisible and spiritual means by which material possessions are estimated and determined for men according to their value, are holy to the Lord, a copy of His law in the outer world; taken up by Himself into His sanctuary, and therefore, as His work, to be regarded holy also by men.—(On Pro_16:14): Seasonable words of a wise man can easily avert the wrath of kings, destructive as that is. Therefore let each one mould himself into such a wise man, or find for himself such a one.
Pro_16:16-26. [Chalmers (on Pro_16:17): The reflex influence of the outward walk and way on the inner man.—Arnot (on Pro_16:17): Doctrine, although both true and Divine, is for us only a shadow, if it be not embodied in holiness.—Waterland (on Pro_16:18): Shame and contempt the end of pride, a) by natural tendency; b) because of God’s detestation and resolution to punish it.—Muffet (on Pro_16:19): It is a pleasant thing to be enriched with other men’s goods: it is a gainful thing to have part of the prey: it is a glorious thing to divide the spoil. It is better to be injured than to do injury; it is better to be patient than to be insolent; it is better with the afflicted people of God to be bruised in heart and low of port, than to enjoy the pleasures or treasures of sin or of this world for a season.—Trapp (on Pro_16:20): He that, in the use of lawful means resteth upon God for direction and success, though he fail of his design, yet he knows whom he hath trusted, and God will “know his soul in adversity ”].—Geier (on Pro_16:20): In doubtful cases to hold fast to God’s word and believingly hope in His help, ensures always a good issue.—Starke (on Pro_16:21-22): Eloquence combined with wisdom is to be regarded as an excellent gift of God, and produces so much the more edification and profit.—Lange (on Pro_16:21): One must first learn to think rightly before he can speak well.—Von Gerlach (on Pro_16:26): Since that which causes us labor and trouble becomes a means of our subsistence, it in turn helps us overcome labor and trouble, for this very thing, by virtue of God’s wise, regulating providence, becomes for us a spur to industry.—[Lawson (on Pro_16:26): Self-love is a damning sin where it reigns as the chief principle of action; but the want of self-love where it is required is no less criminal.]
Pro_16:27-33. Starke (on Pro_16:27 sq.): The lack of genuine love for one’s neighbor is the source of all deception, persecution and slander of the innocent.—Hypocrites can indeed by an assumed mien of holiness deceive men, but before the eyes of God all this is clear and open, to their shame.—(On Pro_16:32): The greatest heroes and conquerors of the world are often just the most miserable slaves of their lusts.—E. Lösch (on Pro_16:31—see Sonntagsfeier, 1841, No. 27): Age, its burdens, its dignities; means to the attainment of a happy old age.—Saurin (Sermon on Pro_16:32): On true heroism—what it Isaiah , 1) to be ruler of one’s spirit; 2) to gain cities and lands.—Von Gerlach (on Pro_16:33): Chance there is not, and man can never give more than the outward occasion for the decision, which lies wholly in the hand of the Lord.—[Trapp (on Pro_16:30): Wicked men are great students.… Their wits will better serve them to find out a hundred shifts or carnal arguments than to yield to one saving truth, though never so much cleared up to them.—Muffet (on Pro_16:31): Commendable old age leaneth upon two staves—the one the remembrance of a life well led, the other the hope of eternal life.—See Emmons’ Sermon on Pro_16:31.—J. Edwards (on Pro_16:32): The strength of the good soldier of Jesus Christ appears in nothing more than in steadfastly maintaining the holy, calm meekness, sweetness and benevolence of his mind, amidst all the storms, injuries, strange behaviour, and surprising acts and events, of this evil and unreasonable world.—Lawson (on Pro_16:32): The meek obtain the noblest victories and enjoy the happiest kind of authority.—South (on Pro_16:33): Sermon on “All contingencies under the direction of God’s providence.”]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. The preparations of the heart — The weight…
1. The preparations of the heart — The weight of criticism is against this reading. There is unquestionably a sense in which the saying, as it stands, is true. But this does not seem to be the meaning here. The sense generally consented to is substantially this: the plans or arrangements of the heart appertain to man, but the utterance of the tongue is from Jehovah. It is somewhat similar to our English saying, “Man proposes, God disposes.” Jehovah is the giver of right words, from which health and life go forth.
But others understand “the answer of the tongue” to mean the answer to the tongue — the answer to prayer. Comp. Mat_10:19-20; Rom_8:26; 2Co_3:5, and verse nine of this chapter.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. The preparations &c.] Rather:
1. The preparations &c.] Rather:
To man belong the preparations (or plans) of the heart;
Read full note →
But from Jehovah is the answer of the tongue.
This cannot mean that wise thoughts are human, but wise words divine, that man unaided can plan well, but only by God’s help can speak well; but rather that after man has done his utmost in planning, his wisest plans may come to nought in the comparatively easy act of giving utterance to them with a view to their accomplishment, unless Jehovah guides his tongue. And the implied moral of the proverb is, If you cannot do the less without God, do not attempt to do the greater without Him; “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths,” Pro_3:5-6. Comp. Pro_16:9 of this chapter.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) The preparations of the heart in man .…
XVI.
(1) The preparations of the heart in man . . .—Rather, To man belong the counsels of the heart. He may turn over in his mind what is the right thing to be said on any occasion, “but from the Lord is the answer of the tongue.” (Comp. Pro_15:23.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 1-7. These are specially religions maxims, and they…
Vers. 1-7. These are specially religions maxims, and they all contain the name Jehovah.
The Authorized Version makes one sentence of this verse without any contrast or antithesis. This is plainly wrong, there being intended a contrast between the thought of the heart and the well ordered speech. It is better translated, The plans of the heart are mans: but the answer of the tongue is from Jehovah. Men make plans, arrange speeches, muster arguments, in the mind; but to put these into proper, persuasive words is a gift of God. "Our sufficiency is of God". (2Co_3:5) In the case of Balaam, God overruled the wishes and intentions of the prophet, and constrained him to give utterance to something very different from his original mental conceptions. But the present sentence attributes the outward expression of what the mind has conceived in every case unto the help of God. (comp. vers. 9, 33 Pro_15:23) Christ enjoined his disciples to trust to momentary inspiration in their apologies or defences before unbelievers. (Mat_10:19) This verse is omitted in the Septuagint.
Read full note →
Man"s thought and God"s work.
Theology and philosophy have ever been confronted with the problem of the interrelation of the Divine and the human in life. If God is supreme, what room is there for man"s will, thought, and individual personality? If man has freedom and power, how can God be the infinite Ruler and Disposer of all things? It may not be possible to reconcile the two positions. But it must be unwise to ignore either of them. If we cannot mark their confines, we can at least observe the contents of the domain of each.
I MAN HAS FREEDOM OF THOUGHT. "Man"s are the counsels of the heart." Though externally constrained by circumstances, he is free to roam at large in the ample fields of imagination. The mind has a certain originative power. It is well nigh a creator of thoughts at least it can select the ideas that occur to it, arrange them, draw deductions from them; or it can let its fancies grow into new shapes; or, again, it can organize schemes, project plans, formulate purposes. Now, this liberty and the power it implies carry with them certain momentous consequences.
1. We are responsible for our thoughts. They are all known to God, and they will all be judged by him. Let as therefore take heed what follies and fancies we harbour in our most secret "chambers of imagery.
2. We may exercise power with our thoughts. These thoughts are seeds of actions. Inasmuch as we can direct them, we can turn the first springs of events. Here it is, in this inner workshop of the mind, that a man must forge his own future, and strike out works of public good.
3. We cannot be coerced in our thoughts. The tyrant may fling a man into a dungeon, but he cannot destroy the convictions that are enthroned in the bosom of his victim; he may tear out his tongue, but he can never tear out his thoughts. Here the powers of despotism fail; here the inalienable "lights of man" are over in exercise.
II GOD WORKS THROUGH MAN"S LIFE. "The answer of the tongue is from the Lord." Though a man thinks out his ideas with originative power, when he comes into the world of action other influences lay hold of him, and his utterances are not wholly his own. This is conspicuously true of the prophet, who is not a mere mouthpiece of Divine words, but a living, thinking man; and yet whose utterances are inspired by God. The remarkable fact now is that it is true also of every man, of the godless man as well as the devout man. God controls the outcome of every man"s life.
1. He controls through internal impulses. Conscience is the voice of God, and every man has a conscience. When conscience is disobeyed, the willing service of God is rejected, but still an unconscious doing of God"s will may be brought about. In the days of the Exodus God was guiding even the stubborn Pharaoh to consent at last to the Divine purpose in the liberation of the Hebrews.
2. He controls through external circumstances. These modify a man"s words and deeds. Even after he has spoken, they give point and direction to what he has said and done.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-3. The rule and guidance of Jehovah.
I GOD THE OBJECT AND FULFILMENT OF HUMAN DESIRE. We are wishful, craving creatures, "with no language but a sigh." The answer of the praying tongue and heart is God himself in the fulness of his wisdom and love, the generosity of his gifts, the accessibility of his presence. A philosopher of this century actually taught that God was the Creator of human wishes and imagination. Let us rather say, it is God who creates and calls forth the longings of the finite heart, which (as Augustine says) is restless till it rests in him.
II GOD THE CORRECTOR OF OUR FALSE JUDGMENTS. (Ver. 2) We are prone to judge of actions and choices by their aesthetic value, i.e. by reference to our feeling of pleasure and pain; God pronounces on their ethical value, their relation to his Law and to the ideal of our own being.
III GOD THE SUPPORT OF OUR WEAKNESS. (Ver. 3) What is the source of all care and over anxiety, but that we are unequal to the conflict with laws mightier than our frail energies and endeavours? Without God, we stand trembling in the presence of a giant late which can crush us. But there is no such fate to the believer in God, only a holy power and immovable will. "We are a care to the gods," said Socrates. Much more can the Christian say this, and learn to,get rid of his troubles by making them in childlike faith God"s troubles, his cares God"s cares. Our plans become fixed, our purposes firm, when we are conscious that they are God"s plans and purposes being wrought out through us. J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1, 3, 9. Thought, action, prayer.
It may be said that the three main elements of human experience are those of thinking, of acting, and of praying. We have not done our best until we have done all of these.
I THOUGHT. "The preparations of the heart belong to man" (Revised Version). "Thy thoughts" ("thy purposes," Revised Version). We are told of Peter, after the denial, that "when he thought thereon, he wept". (Mar_14:72) But if he had thought beforehand what grief he would cause his Master by such unworthiness, he would not have had occasion to weep at all. "When Judas saw that he was condemned, he repented." But if he had thought, he would have seen that this was the plain and inevitable issue of his action. The pity is that we do not think as we should before we act. The preparation of the heart belongs to us; it is our most bounden duty to think, and to think well, before we act. And we must remember that speech is action, and often most important and decisive action too. We should include in our thought, when we are forming our "purposes" (Revised Version), the consideration of the effects of our prepared action upon
(1) our Whole nature bodily, mental, spiritual;
(2) our family and our friends;
(3) our neighbours and associates;
(4) our fellow worshippers and fellow workers;
(5) the cause of Jesus Christ;
(6) not only the immediate, but the further future.
We should, so far as we can, think the whole subject through, look at it from all those points of view that we command; above all, we should take a decreasingly selfish and an increasingly generous and devout view of the subjects that come before us.
II ACTION. "Thy works." Thought must be followed by vigorous effort, or it will "lose the name of action." Our works include not only those industries in which we are professionally engaged, these are of great importance to us, as those which occupy the greater part of our time and most of our strength; but they include also our contributions, larger or smaller, worthy or unworthy, to the condition of our homes, to the character and the destiny of our children, to the comfort and well being of our dependents or our employers, to the improvement of our locality, to the stability and freedom and success of the institutions (social, literary, ecclesiastical, municipal, national) upon which we can bring any influence to bear. We may move in a humble sphere, and yet, when all is told that the chronicles of heaven can tell, we may include in a busy and conscientious life many "works" that will not want the Divine approval or the blessing of mankind.
III PRAYER. "The answer of the tongue is from the Lord... and thy thoughts shall be established." The two clauses imply, respectively,
(1) that God sometimes makes other issues to result than those which we expect;
(2) that God continually brings to pass that which we strive to accomplish, especially when we commend our cause to his Divine favour. The practical conclusions are these, respectively:
1. That we must be quite willing for the hand of God to give a different direction to our activities; quite prepared to accept another issue from that which we had set before our own minds. For God "seeth not as we see," and he works out his gracious purposes in other ways than those of our choosing.
2. That we should always realize our dependence on God for a favourable issue, and earnestly ask his blessing on our labour. It is the touch of his Divine hand that must quicken into life, that must crown with true success. C.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The preparations of the heart in man, and the…
Pro_16:1
The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.
Read full note →
Heart-culture
We must allow no habits of mind to grow upon us which shall unfit us for making the best opportunities of life when they come. We have power in ourselves, by the grace of God, to quicken the perception which shall see the opportunity when it comes, and upon ourselves rests the responsibility of keeping the resolution and the will in hand, so as to grasp the opportunity while it is within our reach. Perception is to a great degree a matter of education. The faculty of observation is improved in a child by its parent or teacher. Great study elicits from the student in riper years a marvellous quickness and acuteness in observing. Illustrate cultured power of observation in the painter, forester, or naturalist. Same is true in the spiritual life. If your habitual practice be to refer all things to God, that devotion, that practice will give you a presence of mind in the face of every accident. A sudden sorrow may come, but you will not lose your presence of mind and readiness and accuracy of perception. Conversions that appear to be sudden, may not be so sudden as they seem to be; there may have been foregoing preparations, especially the habit of the previous life to refer all things to God with devotion. A man who has made himself unspiritual has dulled his sense of perception, and the man who has known the will of God and done it not, loses the power to rise up and follow Christ. See some ways in which the preparation of our own heart in former years makes us ready or unready to use the opportunities which God offers us. Take a mans discipline of temper, which touches a mans character very much indeed. To such a man a time of trial, disappointment, failure, comes. God thus affords the man an opportunity for the greatest and best of all the graces that can adorn humanity. It is an opportunity for true humility. The check will be a blessing to him if he has previously prepared himself by self-discipline and heart-culture. (Canon Furse.)
Human speech Divinely controlled
The sentiment, according to the A.V., is this--that it belongs to God to furnish the heart with all wisdom and grace, by which it is prepared to dictate to the tongue the utterance of whatever is truly good and profitable. Literally, the words are, To man the orderings of the heart; but from Jehovah is the answer of the tongue. The meaning appears to be, that whatever thoughts and purposes are in a mans mind--whatever sentiments it may be his intention to utter, if they are such as are likely to have any influence, or to produce effects of any consequence--they are all under supreme control. We have an exemplification of the fact in the case of Balaam. The preparation of his mind and heart was his own. He left his country, on the invitation of Balak, with a certain purpose; designing to utter what was in harmony with his love of the wages of unrighteousness. But the Lord turned the curse into a blessing. He made the infatuated false prophet to feel his dependence; so that, bent as his heart was to utter one thing, his tongue was constrained to utter another. Thus it often is, in ways for which the speakers and agents themselves cannot at the time account. One of these ways is, that by imperative, unanticipated circumstances, men are brought to say the very contrary of what they intended. Something changes in a moment the current of their thoughts and the tenor of their words. In every case there is complete Divine control. A man may revolve in his mind or heart thoughts without number, but he cannot so much as lisp or whisper one of them without God. (Ralph Wardlaw, D.D.)
Man proposes, God disposes
Taking the words as they stand before us, they give the idea that all goodness in man is from God.
1. The goodness in the heart is from Him. The preparations of the heart in man. The margin reads disposings. All the right disposings of the heart toward the real, the holy, and the Divine, are from the Lord. How does He dispose the heart to goodness? Not arbitrarily, not miraculously, not in any way that interferes with the free agency of man. He has avenues to the human heart of which we know nothing.
(1) That He is the author of all goodness in the soul.
(2) That we are bound to labour after this goodness.
2. Taking the words of the text as in our version, they teach that goodness in language is from God. And the answer of the tongue. The language is but the expression of the heart. But the words as they stand are not true to the original. A literal translation would be this: To man the orderings of the heart, but from Jehovah the answer of the tongue. Man proposes, God disposes.
I. This is an undoubted fact. A fact sustained--
1. By the character of God. All the plans formed in the human heart must necessarily be under the control of Him who is all-wise, and all-powerful. They cannot exist without His knowledge, they cannot advance without His permission, a fact sustained--
2. By the history of men. Take for examples the purposes of Josephs brethren, of Pharaoh in relation to Moses; of the Jews in relation to Christ, etc. A fact sustained--
3. By our own experience. Who has not found the schemes of his own heart taking a direction never contemplated by the author?
II. This is a momentous fact--
1. In its bearing on the enemies of God. Sinner, your most cherished schemes, whatever they may be, sensual, avaricious, infidel, are under the control of Him against whom you rebel; He will work them for your confusion, and His own glory. It is momentous--
2. In its bearing on the friends of God. It is all-encouraging to them. He maketh the wrath of man to praise Him (Psa_76:10). Trust in Him. (Homilist.)
A prepared heart
There are some of you who, at some time or other, made a great effort to be religious, and to prepare your own heart to feel, to pray, to be holy, to be ready to die. You strove very hard. Did you succeed? or was it a complete failure? Lay it down as a foundation-principle, the great axiom of religion--you can never prepare your own heart. No prayer, no effort, no strength of character, no system of theology, no quantity of good works will do it. We must always be putting back our heart into our Makers hands with such a prayer as this: Lord take my heart--for I cannot give it; and keep it for Thyself--for I cannot keep it for Thee.
1. God will carry on the preparation of the heart by discipline. It is all drill from first to last. Life is education. As soon as God has special purposes of mercy to any soul, and takes it in hand, discipline begins.
2. There is great preparation in Gods Word. We almost imperceptibly take the mind of the author. We get an intuition into the will of God.
3. Gods great instrument--if that be an instrument which is Himself--is the Holy Ghost.
4. But there is another, and, if possible, still higher stage in the great preliminary--union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Real, sensible, living union. Now, it is a great and very pleasing thought to know that this fourfold preparation of the heart is always going on. Now all that you have to do is to let God work, and He will work. (J. Vaughan, M A.)
The preparation of the heart the Lords work
The word preparations is a military term, signifying the marshalling of an army. The doctrine here is, that all our fitness for duty, and all our assistance in it, is from the Lord.
I. How doth God prepare the heart for duty? Preparation is twofold--that which divines call habitual, and also actual preparation for particular occasions of duty. That which is habitual respects our state; that which is actual represents our frames God assists us--
1. By calling off our vain and wandering thoughts, and so fixing our hearts for duty.
2. He works in our heart a holy fear and reverence of His majesty.
3. By giving us the savour of past experiences, and by giving us present desires, after communing with Him.
4. By sudden and unexpected enlargement of spirit. We are surprised into mercy.
II. How doth God prepare us in our speeches before Him?
1. He reveals to us our own wants, gives us some special errand to go with to God.
2. He gives us arguments and pleas to use in prayer.
3. He makes intercessions in us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
4. He guides and directs the soul to ask but for those things which God means to give. Use: If men cannot prepare themselves for duty, after grace is received, much less can they prepare themselves for grace while in an unregenerate state. Caution against three things.
(1) Known omissions.
(2) Conscience-wasting sins.
(3) Dependence on gifts, in your approach to God. (John Hill.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Pro_16:1. Nearly all commentators agree in reading this verse,…
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Pro_16:1. Nearly all commentators agree in reading this verse, “To man belong the preparations of the heart, but the answer of the tongue is from, the Lord.” Preparations, lit. “arrangements,” “orderly disposings,” as those of an army in array, or as the loaves of the shewbread set in order.
Read full note →
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_16:1
THE HEART AND THE TONGUE
I The human heart needs preparation.
1. It needs to be prepared for the reception of moral truth. When the earth was “without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep,” it was not in a condition to receive seed into its bosom. There was a need of preparation before it was fit to receive seed which would produce “herb after its kind.” Light must play upon its surface, heat and moisture must penetrate the soil. And man’s heart, in his present fallen condition, is like the earth before the “Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” It needs some preparation before it can receive the truth of God so as to be benefited by it—before it is that “good ground” into which, when the “good seed” falls, it “brings forth fruit, some an hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold” (Mat_13:3-8). As the plough must break the clods before the seed can be sown with any hope of harvest, so the “fallow-ground” of the heart must be broken up—must undergo some preparation before it can be a profitable receiver of moral truth (Hos_10:12). Our Lord, in the parable of the sower, teaches most distinctly the truth that the good which is derived from hearing Divine truth depends upon the state of heart of him who hears.
2. It needs to be prepared to yield moral truth. All the preparation of the earth is to the end—not that it should be a receiver, but a giver. The seed is sown not that it should remain in the soil, but that the earth should “bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater” (Isa_55:10). So it is with the human soul. It takes in the thoughts of God, that it may translate them into holy words and deeds. The “preparation of the heart” is but a means to “the answer of the tongue.” Out of the “good treasure of the heart” good things are expected to issue (Mat_12:35). But unless there is preparation to receive there can be no giving out of anything that is worth the giving. The quality of the water that comes to the lip of the drinker depends upon the quality of the spring that fills the well. As we have often before remarked, the “tree” must be first “good,” and then the “fruit will be good” (Mat_12:33). He whose heart is prepared by Divine influence to receive the Divine Word will not be at a loss for such an “answer of the tongue” as will bring glory to God, honour to himself, and blessings to others.
II. The preparation of the heart, and, therefore, the answer of the tongue, depends upon God. In nature laws are constantly at work to bring to pass certain facts and results, and man works with these laws, and in obedience to them. But behind the laws there must be a law-giver—behind the working there must be a worker—and this worker and law-giver is God. The preparation of the earth is the work of man; yet both the preparation of the earth and the answer of the earth to that preparation is from God. There would be no harvest if the husbandman did not toil; but there would be no harvest if behind him and his toil there was not the Life-Giver. God is the spring of all activities, not only in the sower of the seed, but in the seed which is sown and in the earth in which it germinates. So in the preparation of the heart, and the right use of the tongue. Man’s freedom and responsibility in these matters are insisted upon in the oracles of God. He and he alone is to be blamed if his heart is not prepared to receive the words of God. He is commanded as we saw just now to “break up his fallow ground” (Jer_4:3)—to prepare his spirit for the reception of Divine truth. Yet if a man’s heart is thus prepared, and if by preparation of heart his tongue is able to speak good words, he is not the sole producer of the result. Behind the springs of thinking—behind the means used by the man himself—God is working “both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” God claims to be the Author of all good, whether in the bud of thought or in the fruit of action. From Him “all good counsels and all just works do proceed.” This is the teaching of this verse as it stands in our English Bible, but many commentators translate the verse differently. (See Critical Notes.) The thought as thus translated is similar to that in Pro_16:9, upon which see Homiletics.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
The great doctrine of all Scripture is, that heart religion is true religion. In nothing is Christianity more distinguished from all other systems of religion than in the moral purity which it inculcates and which it provides the means of producing. Other religions multiply articles of faith and ritual observances, and pompous ceremonials: this alone fixes upon the internal character of the worshipper and the actual state of the heart before God. God first gives grace, and then owns and honours the grace which He gives. “The preparations of the heart are of the Lord;” “The prayer of the upright is His delight” (chap. Pro_15:8). This was discovered long before Solomon’s time. It was from the very first the primary design of the religion of the Bible. “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain” (Heb_11:4).… It is God’s prerogative to prepare the heart for Himself, and he does this especially, by establishing the principles of grace and holiness in the mind, and then actuating the habits of grace which His own spirit has implanted. We need preparation—
1. For spiritual worship. The worship of God, as it necessarily includes all the devout affections, is the most spiritual act in which we are engaged. In prayer, in reading and hearing God’s word, and in approaching the sacramental table, we have especially to do with God, in the gracious relations in which He stands to us. And as these exercises raise us above the ordinary level of the world, and are foreign to our ordinary habits of thought and emotion as the creatures of dust and time, we need especial assistance to fix our attention, to purify our motives, and to realise the presence of the Master of assemblies. We need “grace whereby to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Heb_12:28). This preparation of the heart is God’s gift, it is God’s promise, it is the Church’s hope, and it has been realised in the experience of God’s faithful people in the ordinances of His appointment.
2. For active service. Christians have much to do for God in the world, in the family, in the Church, in the disposal of their ordinary business, etc. In all these things wisdom is needed to direct, and wisdom should be sought from him.
3. For patient suffering. It is a great thing to have a heart prepared for suffering. One important requisite is, to anticipate its approach, that that day may not come upon us unawares, that trial may not entangle us in temptation, but may, like the overflowings of the Nile, leave the means of fertility behind. Another requisite is that we should expect to meet with God in affliction. When God announces a long succession of national judgments, He says, “And because I will do this, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel” (Amo_4:12). This text is usually applied to death and judgment, but it really relates to worldly disasters, and teaches that God would have us prepare to meet Him in the distressing changes of human life.
4. For enjoyment. If there is much to be suffered there is also much to be enjoyed. But a time of prosperity needs heart preparation, lest a time of ease be a time of danger. “It is the bright day brings out the adder, and that craves wary walking.” It was when Noah had escaped the deluge, and had gathered in his first vintage from the grapes he had planted, that he drank of the wine and was drunken. David, safe in the wilderness, was entangled in fatal snares when walking on the roof of his palace. (Note. Though heart preparation is from God, it is not given as a premium to sloth, but in proportion to the earnestness with which we seek the grace. The following passage from a letter of Colonel Gardiner tells how that man of God sought preparation from God for the Lord’s Supper. “I took a walk on the hills and mountains over against Ireland. And could I give you a description of what passed there, you would agree that I had much better reason to remember my God from the hills of Port P—than David from the Hermonites, the land of Jordan, and the hill Mizar. In short, I wrestled with the Angel of the Covenant some hours, and made supplication to Him with strong crying and tears until I had almost expired, but He strengthened me till I had power with God. You will be able to judge by what you have felt upon like occasions, after such a preparatory work, how blessed the Lord’s Supper was to me.”)—S. Thodey.
Man may lay out his plans, but God alone can give them effect in answer to the tongue of prayer (Pro_16:9; chap. Pro_19:21; 2Co_3:5).—Maurer.
Often what you dispose in the aptest order in your heart you cannot also express suitably with the tongue. What one aptly speaks is from God.—Mercer.
Men often determine in heart to say something, but God overrules their tongue so as to say something utterly different, as in Balaam’s case (Numbers 23).—Menochius.
God takes the stone out of the heart that it may feel (Eze_36:26); draws it that it may follow; quickens it that it may live. He opens the heart that He may imprint His own law, and mould it into His own image (Act_16:14; Jer_31:33). He works, not merely by moral suasion or by the bare proposal of means of uncertain power, but by invisible Almighty agency. The work then begins with God. It is not that we first come, and then are taught; but first we learn, then we come (Joh_6:45).… Shall we then wait indolently till He works? Far from it. We must work, but in dependence upon Him. He works not without us, but with us, through us, in us, by us, and we work in Him (Php_2:13; Job_11:13). Ours is the duty, His is the strength; ours the agency, His the quickening grace. “The work, as it is a duty, is ours; but as a performance it is God’s” (Bishop Reynolds).—Bridges.
Undoubtedly we arrange and plan. That is a matter of consciousness. But these are but the tools of the designer. He uses our plannings to shape the last word to His mind.… The “arrangings of the heart” are, indeed, as much God’s as the final “decree,” because, in brief, everything is. He destines everything; but not in the same sense in which they are consciously man’s. They precede the end, and are present. They cannot determine the end, that is future. I cannot determine now what I will say the next moment. God can. I can and do arrange. But at any convenient point, at any interval, even the very least, God can swing me round. What I shall say is a part of His providence. I cannot ordain to say it in such a way as that it shall be said. In the smallest interval that follows God may tempt Pharaoh, and he may have new views as to letting the children of Israel go. God cannot tempt me to evil; but He can govern by the privation of good. And, therefore, “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever He will.” This, of course, implicates God, to our weak seeming, in the sins of the wicked. The next verse discharges Him from any such accountability. (See Miller’s rendering of Pro_16:2, in his comments.)—Miller.
Though a man have never so exactly marshalled his matter in hand, as it were, in battle array, as the Hebrew imports, though he have set down with himself both what and how to speak, yet he shall never be able to bring forth his conceptions without the help of God.… Digressions are not always unuseful. God’s spirit sometimes draws aside the doctrine to satisfy some soul which the preacher knows not. But though God may force it, yet man may not frame it.—Trapp.
This is a matter of experience to which the preacher, the public speaker, the author, and every man to whom his calling or circumstances present a weighty difficult theme, can attest. As the thoughts pursue one another in the mind, attempts are made and again abandoned; the state of the heart is somewhat like that of chaos before the creation. But when, finally, the right thought and the right utterance for it are found, that which is found appears to us, not as if self-discovered, but as a gift; we regard it with the feeling that a higher power has influenced our thoughts and imaginings; the confession by us “our sufficiency is of God” (2Co_3:5) in so far as we believe in a living God, is inevitable.—Delitzsch.
Man doth not carry himself one-half of the way, and then as one wearied is carried the rest by God. But it is God who supporteth him in the heart as well as in the tongue: it is He that supporteth man in the preparations of the heart, and well as in the subsequent proceedings of the man. He is a God of the valleys as well as of the hills; and it is He that worketh as well in the lowest degree of goodness as in the highest. His praise reacheth from the root of the heart to the tip of the tongue, and all man’s goodness is from His grace.—Jermin.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain Whether it be from the condition in which man…
Pro 16:2
Whether it be from the condition in which man is placed in this world, closely surrounded on all sides by what is visible and tangible, or because our understandings have been darkened in consequence of the fall, it is certain that we experience the greatest difficulty in forming any notion of things spiritual. The finite intellect sinks exhausted by the vain endeavour to picture to itself the infinite. Who can "by searching find out God"?
Read full note →
I. Now the natural consequence of this aversion and incapacity of our nature for spiritual ideas is a strong tendency to materialism in religion. And as the spirituality of the Divine nature is the truth most difficult for us to conceive, so it is the one most liable to be lost sight of, or corrupted. We are always prone to form gross and material conceptions of God, to think of Him as "altogether such an one as ourselves." The practical results of this principle are always the same; a low and carnal morality always follows, like a dark shadow, a low and carnal creed.
II. There is a class of errors resulting from this principle, against which we have all need to be on our guard—I mean false views of the nature of God’s law and of the principle upon which His sentence is awarded. The true answer to all such errors, and the only solution of the difficulty which has caused them, lies in the statement of the truth that the controversy between God and man is about spiritual things, and that our position respecting Him is to be decided by the aspect which our spirits may wear in His eyes, or, as our text expresses it, that "the Lord weigheth the spirits."
III. What is the sin of which a spirit can be guilty against God? Clearly, it cannot be any of these gross transgressions of the letter of the law, which are commonly called sins. To commit these it must be joined to a body. It must be a sin in that faculty which is exclusively spiritual; that is, in the will. The rebellion of the will, in any spirit, is strictly and properly sin; and the banishment from God’s presence which is the necessary consequence is eternal death. The law of God denounces eternal death as the punishment for all sins, not because they are all alike in moral guilt, but because they are all alike indications of the same condition of the sinner—one of enmity to God. The very lightest transgression proves, as clearly as the very greatest, the innate lawlessness of the perverted and therefore sinful will.
IV. It is true that you have to pass a spiritual ordeal, searching and terrible as the consuming fire of a sevenfold-heated furnace. But you may pass through it unscathed if in the midst of it the Son of man be your companion.
Bishop Magee, Sermons at St. Saviour’s, Bath, p. 183.
References: Pro 16:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv., No. 849, and My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 175. Pro 16:2-3, Pro 16:18, Pro 16:19.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 82; W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 59. Pro 16:3.—J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii., p. 310. Pro 16:4.—H. Thompson, Concionalia: Outlines for Parochial Use, 1st series, vol. i., p. 493. Pro 16:5-18.—New Manual of Sunday School Addresses, p. 10.
Pro 16:6
Value of almsgiving in the sight of God.
I. God knits together in the utmost closeness our own deeds, done by His grace, with His own deeds for us. When our Lord Himself says in plain words, "Give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you," He does not unsay what He had said of faith and repentance, but He teaches the value of charity the more emphatically, in that He speaks of it alone. He so, loves the poor who endure patiently His own earthly lot of privation; He so loves the love which considers Himself in them, that He refuses no grace to their intercession which shall be needful to our salvation. He, in them, receives our gifts; He, for them, will receive ourselves.
II. What is that mercy which, if we have not, we "shall have judgment without mercy"? Those who have distinguished most carefully have laid down that what, in a large construction, we need, is alone ours, "our superfluities are the necessaries of the poor." God’s commandment abides. He has not left almsgiving free to our choice, that we should plume ourselves upon our trifling charities, as though they were the free gifts of our liberality. The freedom of the Gospel is freedom from sin, not from duty; it is a free service that we may serve freely. He lays down no measure for us, that giving, as did the early Christians, "to their power, yea and beyond their power," we might imitate in some measure the measureless love of our God for us. But the law of mercy itself is as absolute a law as any of the commandments given on Mount Sinai. It is the soul of all the commandments of the second table. The more God has revealed of His love, the more awful are the penalties of unlove. He has fenced the law of love with the penalty of the everlasting loss of the sight of God, who is love. "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire."
III. Our modern refinement will not bear the sight of Lazarus, nor allow him to lie at the gate of the rich, to elicit the mercy of the merciful, or to receive the charity of our dogs. We proscribe mendicity, we cannot proscribe misery. The law can make it a crime to ask alms in the name of Jesus. It cannot do away with the presence of Jesus. The deepest misery is the most retiring. To suffer, like our Lord, overlooked, despised, neglected of men, but precious in His sight, is most like to the earthly lot of the Redeemer of us all.
E. B. Pusey, Sermons before the University of Oxford, p. 359.
I. Solomon was speaking in the spirit of the Old Testament; yet you perceive in his words no sense of a contradiction between the two qualities of mercy and truth, no endeavour to show how they may be adjusted to each other. He assumes that they must work together, that one cannot exist without the other. He says simply, "By mercy and truth iniquity is purged;" both are equally enemies of iniquity; both are equally interested in its extirpation; both are equally interested in the delivery of the creature who is tormented by it. Such a view as this was surely the only one which could satisfy the Jews who believed in the God of Abraham. They felt that only a perfectly righteous being could be perfectly merciful. To be unmerciful, hard-hearted, selfish, was a part—a chief part—of their own unrighteousness and falsehood. Why, but because they had departed from that blessed Image after which they were formed, that Image in which mercy and truth are necessarily and eternally united?
II. I have spoken of the old dispensation. Is all changed, as we are sometimes told, in the new? Jesus said, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." Did any one see in Him that warfare of truth with mercy which we have so rashly dreamed of in the eternal mind? A warfare there was throughout His life upon earth—with foes seen and unseen, with Scribes and Pharisees, with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with spiritual wickedness in high places. But it was the warfare of truth and mercy against untruth and hardness of heart. He showed that mercy and truth were divided only by the evil that seeks to destroy both. He showed that it is by their perfect union that iniquity is purged.
III. And by the fear of this great and holy name do men depart from evil. The fear of One in whom dwells all mercy and truth; to be separated from whom is to be separated from mercy and truth; from whom comes restoration as well as life; who seeks to deliver us from the misery that is in us, that we may possess the treasures which are in Him,—this fear, when it is entertained in the heart, when it penetrates the whole man, will keep us from every evil way.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 215.
References: Pro 16:6.— W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 68. Pro 16:7.— J. Wells, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 459. Pro 16:9.— New Manual of Sunday School Addresses, p. 19; W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 74.
Pro 16:16
I. Better than gold! But gold is good, very good, and he who would put forward with success the far higher worth of wisdom had better not begin his argument by putting too low an estimate on gold. Gold is full of service; has in it wondrous potencies for smoothing life-travel, lightening burdens, cheering the poor, helping the needy, and glorifying God. Yet before all its power and glitter and glory I stand up and say, "How much better is it to get wisdom than gold!"
II. Both Solomon and Paul call Christ the Saviour by the name of Wisdom. Solomon also calls the Scriptures wisdom, and they who make piety their chief concern he calls wise. To know Christ, then, in the heart as a Saviour, in the mind as a Teacher, in the life as a Pattern, and in all things as a King—this is wisdom. It is the fear of the Lord, the love of His law, faith in His Cross, the power of His Spirit, the hope in His Word. This is better than gold.
III. Gold can be but an external possession, a mere accessory of life. Wisdom is a well, a fountain, in the Christian’s soul. It is fed by secret channels direct from the river of life, clear as crystal, which proceedeth from the throne of God and of the Lamb. The joy of the Lord is his strength, the strength of the Lord is his joy; and, filled from that perennial Fount of good, he lives, thrives, rejoices, utterly independent of the lack of gold.
J. Jackson Wray, Light from the Old Lamp, p. 16.
References: Pro 16:16.— W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 88. Pro 16:17.— Ibid., p. 93.
Pro 16:18
There is a tendency in knowledge to produce humility: so that the more a man knows the more likely he is to think little of himself.
I. Pride proves deficiency of knowledge—first, in respect of our state by nature. Who could be proud of beauty, if fraught with the consciousness that all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass? Who could be proud because of some little elevation above his fellow-men, who is deeply aware of his own position as an accountable creature, the subject and servant of an invisible King, in whose eyes all men are on a level? Who, once more, could be proud of his intellectual strength, of his wit, his wisdom, his elocution, who knew the height from which he had fallen; who saw in himself the fragments of what God designed and created him to be? It is ignorance, and ignorance alone, which allows of man’s being proud:
II. Pride shows deficiency of knowledge in respect of our state by grace. Nothing could be clearer from Scripture than that we owe our deliverance exclusively to the free unmerited goodness of God; and if to this argument for humility, which is interwoven with the whole texture of the Gospel, you add the constant denunciation of that Gospel against pride, its solemn demand of holiness as essential to all who would "inherit the kingdom of heaven," you will see that the further a man goes in acquaintance with the Gospel, the more motive will he have for abasing himself before God, and shunning with all abhorrence a haughty and self-sufficient spirit.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2421.
References: Pro 16:20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 392; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 126. Pro 16:22.—W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 99.
Pro 16:25
Our difficulty in life is often with things that seem to be right.
I. Does not the way of self-protection seem to be right? To a certain extent it is right; pressed unduly it becomes practical atheism.
II. Does not the way of physical persecution for truth’s sake seem to be right?
III. Does not the way of self-enjoyment seem right?
IV. Does not the way of judging by appearances seem right?
V. Does not the way of self-redemption seem right? This is the fatal error of mankind.
Application: (1) Lean not to thine own understanding. (2) Seek higher than human counsel. Put thy whole life into the keeping of God.
Parker, City Temple, vol. iii., p. 187.
References: Pro 16:31.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 156. Pro 16:32.—J. Vaughan, Children’s Sermons, 1875, p. 71. Pro 16:33.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 354; F. Tholuck, Hours of Devotion, p. 141. Pro 17:1-7.—R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs, vol. ii., p. 121. Pro 17:8-15.—Ibid., p. 133. Pro 17:12.—W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven, 2nd series, p. 104. Pro 17:16.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 11.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain 1-9. God's control of human life.
1-9. God's control of human life.
1. Read, 'the preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.' Man prepares his plans, but the decisive, final word is suggested by God. 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, roughhew them as we will.'
Read full note →
2. Cp. 1Co_4:4.
4. Read, 'The Lord hath made everything for its own end.' God is the absolute Sovereign (Amo_3:6). The wicked are created for punishment (Exo_9:16; Eze_38:16; Eze_39:21; Rom_9:17). The truth here pointed to would be expressed in milder terms today: we should say that nothing escapes the control and the judgment of God.
5. Though hand, etc.] read, 'he will assuredly not go unpunished' (Pro_11:21).
6. Sin is expiated by kindness and faithfulness towards others (Isa_27:9; Isa_40:2; Dan_4:27; Hos_6:6).
9. 'Man proposes, God disposes.'
10-15. The vv. relate chiefly to a king's powers and functions.
10. His sentence has the force of a divine oracle.
11. Probably the word, the 'Lord,'is mistakenly inserted: the human king is meant. The merchant carried his (stone) weights about in a bag. Explorers have found in Palestine ancient weights of hæmatite, limestone, etc.
15. The light of.. countenance] i.e. his friendly regard. The latter rain] is the spring rain, required to ripen the crops.
16-19. The advantages of a right spirit.
17. The road they travel does not lead to misfortune.
20-25. deal with wisdom and its results.
20. He that handleth, etc.] read, 'he that giveth heed to the word' (of God or of the teacher).
21. The sweetness, etc.] Attractive speech disposes the listener to learn.
22. Instruction] RV 'correction': their folly is their punishment.
26. Hunger prompts labour. It has been wittily said that every boy should pray that he may be born poor.
30. Read, 'he that shutteth his eyes (as if pondering deeply) does it to devise froward things: he that (scornfully) compresses his lips has brought evil to pass.' Slanderers and backbiters are meant.
31. RV 'It shall be found,' etc. The NT. does not teach that the righteous are always rewarded with long life.
32. 'Yet he who reigns within himself, and rules
Passions, desires and fears, is more a king;
And who attains not, ill aspires to rule
Cities of men or headstrong multitudes.'
33. The lot was put in the folds of the garment and then shaken out (Jdg_1:3; Isa_34:17, etc.).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain (See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
fear
(See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain CHAPTER 16 In the Light of the Lord
CHAPTER 16 In the Light of the Lord
The name Jehovah (LORD) appears eleven times in this chapter of Proverbs. The Lord has the final word, for to man belong the preparations (or plans) of the heart; but from the LORD is the answer of the tongue. It is the same thought as in our English proverb--“Man proposes--God disposes.” Man loves to justify himself, his ways are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits; He is the judge of ways and motives. Our works are to be committed (literal: rolled upon) unto the LORD, then establishment and blessing will follow. It is strange that these three verses were omitted in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.
Read full note →
The LORD hath made all things for Himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil Pro 16:4. Much error has been taught in connection with this verse. Some have taught that God made some wicked. It is not said that God makes a man wicked, for “He made man upright” Ecc 7:29), but being wicked by his own choice he comes under the irrevocable law which dooms him to “the day of evil,” of calamity and punishment. By this, the Apostle teaches us, even in its final and most awful form, is revealed not the arbitrary predestination, but “the righteous judgment of God” Rom 2:5-29, T.T. Perowne).
The abomination to the Lord is to be proud in heart. Pride, not only pride as it works out in deeds, but pride as nourished in the heart, seen by the eyes of the Lord alone, is equally an abomination to Him. How much there is in these days! The second stanza of this proverb speaks of joining hand in hand, or hand to hand. It is the much praised “team-work,” confederation, alliance, etc., to do a big work and make a big name. Much of this attempt of doing “big things” in the day of “small things” has its source in the pride of the natural man.
In the sixth proverb of this chapter we have a Gospel text. The word mercy is literally “grace.” The word “purged” is the word translated elsewhere by “covered” or “atoned.” In the Lord Jesus Christ and His work is revealed “grace and truth” and by His work so blessedly finished on the cross our iniquity is covered. Then comes the fear of the Lord which results in departing from evil.
If a man walks in righteousness, in true humility, if he pleaseth the LORD, then his enemies will be silenced and not talk against him. Only too often the charges brought against the children of God by the enemies of truth, are the result of not walking in the truth.
Comforting to faith is the ninth verse. We may devise, plan, and often worry as we make our plans but behind it stands the LORD and in spite of our failures and mistakes “He directeth” the steps of the righteous.
Twice more the name of the LORD is given in this chapter. “And whoso trusteth in the LORD, happy is he” Pro 16:20. The only true happiness is to know the Lord, to trust Him and to follow Him. Inasmuch as we may increase in knowledge of Him, in confidence and in practical obedience our happiness is an increasing happiness. In the last verse we read that the disposing of the lot is of the LORD. The lot was used in the Old Testament. It is mentioned rarely in the New Testament, once preceding the day of Pentecost Act 1:26).
After the Holy Spirit came to guide and direct no lot is needed any longer. We pass over the many other blessed instructions recorded in this chapter. Private meditation and prayer unlock the many riches deposited in them.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain v. 1. The preparations of the heart in man…
v. 1. The preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord, literally, "To man," that is, pertaining to man, "the plannings of the heart, but from Jehovah the answer of the tongue. " The mind of a man may be engaged in attempting to solve a problem, in setting up various plans or schemes to reach a right conclusion, but the best solution is that which is given by the Lord, who finally leads the thoughts according to His will and causes them to be expressed in words in agreement with His plans.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 The plans of the heart belong to a person
The plans of the heart belong to a person
Here the word "heart" represents the person's mind and thoughts. AT: "A person makes plans in his mind" (See: Metonymy)
Read full note →
from Yahweh comes the answer from his tongue
Possible meanings are 1) Yahweh speaks his answer to a person's plans, which is a metaphor meaning that Yahweh determines the outcome of that person's plans or 2) Yahweh enables a person to speak words about the plans that he has made. (See: Metaphor)
the answer from his tongue
The person is represented by his "tongue" to emphasize his speech. AT: "the answer that he speaks" (See: Synecdoche)
All of a person's ways are pure in his own eyes
The eyes represent seeing, and seeing represents thoughts or judgment. The writer speaks of what a person does as if that person were walking down a path. AT: "A person thinks that everything he does is pure" or "A person judges everything he does as pure" (See: Metaphor)
Yahweh weighs the spirits
Here the word "spirits" represents people's desires and motives. The writer speaks of Yahweh discerning and judging a person's desires and motives as if he were weighing that person's spirit. AT: "Yahweh judges the person's motives" (See: Metonymy and Metaphor)
translationWords
heart
Yahweh
tongue
pure
spirit
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 16:1 Our own plans will come to fruition only…
16:1 Our own plans will come to fruition only if God allows (see also 16:9, 33; Jas 4:13-16).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.