Wednesday Bible Study: A Deep Dig Into Proverbs XVI

We return to Proverbs 6 this week, and the second section thereof- the "six things and seven" list of traits that God hates.  And it mirrors the definition in the previous verses of the worthless and wicked person:

Pro 6:12  A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, 
Pro 6:13  winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, 
Pro 6:14  with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord; 
Pro 6:15  therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in a moment he will be broken beyond healing. 
Pro 6:16  There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: 
Pro 6:17  haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 
Pro 6:18  a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, 
Pro 6:19  a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. 

So my question in studying this is, what do we need to learn?  To act like a worthless person?  No.  We need to get a grip on what it is God hates in us.  And what He hates the most.

In looking at this list, it strikes me that they are in the order of what a good man might notice first.  "Haughty eyes, winking with the eyes" is probably the first thing we would notice in a person we'd tend to distrust.  Someone acting high and mighty, seeming to share "hidden thoughts" with others with a glance.  If we miss that clue to a character, the next one will probably bite us sooner or later- the 'lying tongue.'  A storyteller, if you will, prone to exaggeration or 'bending the truth' if it serves their purpose.

Hands that shed innocent blood, you might think, pushes it into the obvious, but remember how Jesus taught that the thinking about an act is the same as committing it?  Consider that the part of the description in vv12-15 that fits this is the part about 'points with his finger'.  Cutting people off with a gesture to his mates; a dirty business deal excused by 'everybody does it'.  The trick here is not letting you REALIZE it's been shed.

A heart that devises evil, or wicked plans... yes, now it's getting more and more obvious, but by now you would have excused his pride for 'charisma', his lies for 'little white ones', and his malice for 'just business', so as long as you're included on the 'profit' side of the plan, are you really worried?  This isn't just a description of 'worthless men', this is a 'how to tell when you are being sucked in by' admonition from Solomon to Rehoboam.

"Feet that make haste to run after evil" pairs up with "signals with his feet", and for the same reason that "pointing with the finger" paired up with shedding innocent blood.  It is being always evil, but subtly, so you can continue to excuse it through the "everybody does it" excuse- even though it's getting harder to do so, it's still easy when you've been sucked down the trail this far.

And the false witness is the last step before the end- you begin to tell the tale as good as he does.  You back up his lies with YOUR lies.  

All of the commentators point out that in these 'six, and seven' or 'three, and four' sets in the Old Testament, the last one- the 'added' one- is the most extreme of the set, thus it is the one God hates above all others here.  And that one is "one who sows discord among brethren".  Seven stands for completion, the commentators say; and this is the one that covers them all.  This is where the wicked completes his plan and shows himself by turning on you... and you have the choice of doing the same to others, or 'be broken beyond healing.'

One last observation:  The word for 'worthless' is the word we've translated to Belial; further generations turned this word into a personification of evil.  But the original meaning was the valley where the pagans- and fallen Israelites- sacrificed children to Moloch.  Josiah turned it into a trash dump; in the NT it became the trash valley that was known as Gehenna, and Jesus used as a name for hell.  So then I can sum up this chapter-part in the lyrics of Chris Rea:

Look out world

Take a good look what comes down here

You must learn these lesson fast and learn it well.

This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway

Oh no, this is the road

This is the road

This is the road to hell....