Proverbs 11:27

Verse 27 sets two seekers side by side. The first “diligently seeketh good”, and the verb, shâchar, means to dawn, and so to be up early at a task. The picture is of someone who rises early to look for what is good and goes after it earnestly and with care. The good he seeks, ṭôwb, is good in its widest sense: what is morally right, pleasant, beneficial and fitting, the well-being of others as much as his own.

Such a person “procureth favour”. The word for favour, râtsôwn, means goodwill, acceptance and delight. Among neighbours it meant a good name and trust, and often a measure of prosperity too, but above all it is the approval of God. David says that the LORD blesses the righteous and surrounds him with favour as with a shield (Psalm 5:12). That favour may include earthly good things, and its heart is God’s delight in the one who seeks good, which brings a peace that holds whatever a person’s circumstances.

The second seeker looks for “mischief”, raʻ, the common word for what is bad or evil, used both for harm done and for calamity suffered. Whoever goes looking for it finds that “it shall come unto him”. The harm he plans for others turns round and falls on his own head. A psalm pictures the wicked man digging a pit and falling into it himself, with his mischief returning upon him (Psalm 7:15–16). Eliphaz had seen that those who plough iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same (Job 4:8), and Hosea warns Israel that those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7).

This is the law of sowing and reaping that runs through the whole Bible. The blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28 set it before Israel, and Paul says that whatever a man sows he will also reap, whether he sows to the flesh or to the Spirit (Galatians 6:7–8). God’s repaying is sure, though it may come slowly and out of sight. The verse also sits well between its neighbours. Just before it the people bless the one who sells his grain and curse the one who hoards it (Proverbs 11:26), and just after it comes the warning against trusting in riches.

To trust, bâṭach, is to feel secure, to be confident, to lean on something. The man in verse 28 rests his hope and his safety on “his riches”, and he “shall fall”. The verb nâphal means to fall, to collapse or to be overthrown. The fall may be the loss of the wealth itself, for riches make themselves wings and fly away (Proverbs 23:4–5). It may also be the deeper ruin of a life given over to getting, which finds in a crisis or at death that its support was only ever borrowed. A psalm describes the man who would not make God his strength and trusted in the abundance of his riches (Psalm 52:7), and Jesus told of the rich fool who filled his barns and was called away that very night (Luke 12:16–21).

Wealth itself is a gift, and the danger lies in leaning on it where we should lean on God. Proverbs has already said, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart” (Proverbs 3:5). Paul tells Timothy to charge those who are rich in this world about where their hope belongs (1 Timothy 6:17–19), and Jesus calls his disciples to lay up their treasure in heaven, where moth and rust and thieves can reach none of it (Matthew 6:19–21).

The righteous, by contrast, “shall flourish as a branch”. The verb pârach means to bud, sprout, blossom, flourish or spread, the steady growth of a living plant. The word rendered “branch” can also be taken as leaf or foliage, a picture of green, healthy growth. Scripture often draws the righteous this way. The blessed man of the first psalm is like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season (Psalm 1:3), and Jeremiah says the man who trusts in the LORD is like a tree planted by the waters, which stays green in the year of drought (Jeremiah 17:7–8).

The verb in “he that troubleth his own house” is ʻâkar, which means to stir up and muddy water, and figuratively to disturb or afflict. The house, bayith, was the whole household: the family across its generations, the servants, the land and everything that belonged to it. It was where faith and values were handed on and where a family’s name and future were kept. The one who leads it carries a heavy charge, and the house can be troubled in many ways, by squandering its means, by stirring up strife, by corrupting its ways or by failing to lead it well. Proverbs elsewhere says that a wise woman builds her house and a foolish one pulls it down with her own hands (Proverbs 14:1).

Such a person “shall inherit the wind”. The word rûwach means wind, breath or spirit, and here it is the wind that no one can hold. An inheritance should be the most solid thing a person receives: land, goods and a name carried on. The man who muddies his own household is left with air. Everything he worked for and everyone who should have been his blessing slips through his fingers. Ecclesiastes uses the same kind of picture when it calls all the works done under the sun vanity, hebel (Ecclesiastes 1:14).

The second line says that “the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart”. The fool, ʼĕvîyl, is the foolish man of Proverbs, marked by a lack of the fear of God and an unwillingness to listen to advice. The wise of heart have the discernment and uprightness that come from fearing the LORD, for “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). The two lines tell one story. The man who has wrecked his own affairs is left without anything to stand on, and he ends up depending on those who manage life wisely, working for them because he could not manage for himself. Jesus drew the same line between the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built on sand (Matthew 7:24–27).

Verse 30 turns from warning to the good the righteous do in the world. Fruit, pᵉrîy, is the produce of a plant, and Scripture uses it often for the outcome of a person’s character and deeds. The fruit of a righteous life, its words, its works and its influence, is “a tree of life”. The word chay means living or alive, and with it life in its fullness, vitality and well-being. The tree of life first stood in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9), the way to it was shut when man fell (Genesis 3), and it stands again in the new Jerusalem (Revelation 22). To call the fruit of the righteous a tree of life means that God’s life flows through his people to others, bringing nourishment and healing to those around them. In the same way the path of the just grows brighter and brighter, like the light of dawn rising to full day (Proverbs 4:18).

The chapter ends with “Behold”, hinneh, a call to stop and take notice. The verb for “recompensed”, shâlam, belongs to a root that speaks of being whole, safe and complete, and from there of making things complete by paying back. Here it means to be repaid, to receive one’s due. The righteous, tsaddîyq, are those who stand right with God and whose hearts and lives are turned toward his will. They are sinners still, and they too are repaid “in the earth”, in this present life.

Then comes “much more the wicked and the sinner”. The argument runs from the lesser to the greater. If God deals with his own people in this life, how much more surely will he deal with the wicked, râshâʻ, the ungodly and guilty who actively do wrong, and the sinner, châṭâʼ, the one who misses the mark and transgresses. A psalm says that there is surely a reward for the righteous and surely a God who judges in the earth (Psalm 58:11). Earlier in this chapter the one who sows righteousness is promised a sure reward (Proverbs 11:18), and the chapter before says the righteous stand firm when the wicked are swept away (Proverbs 10:25).

“In the earth” tells us that God’s justice is at work now, in the world he governs, and the final judgment still lies ahead. Proverbs gives the general rule, and the book of Job shows how hard life can be to read while that rule is working itself out. The truth stands all the same: God is just and he rules over every outcome of human actions. Peter takes up the same order when he says that judgment must begin at the house of God (1 Peter 4:17).

Each of these sayings comes to its fullness in Jesus Christ. He is the one who sought good with all his heart. He showed many good works from his Father (John 10:32) and went to the cross in obedience, and through him the favour of verse 27 reaches us, for God has made us “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). Those who set themselves against him brought the mischief they sought on their own heads, as Jesus lamented over Jerusalem, whose house would be left desolate (Matthew 23:37–39). He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), and in him our labour is never in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Christ is the righteous one who did no sin (1 Peter 2:22). He trusted in his Father to the point of death, and his resurrection is the flourishing of verse 28 in its fullest sense. Through him those who believe are made the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). He is the true vine and we are the branches, and those who abide in him bear much fruit (John 15:5).

Christ is “the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). Where the troubler of his house inherits wind, those who belong to Christ are built into the household of God (Ephesians 2:19–22) and have an inheritance that cannot perish or fade, kept in heaven for them (1 Peter 1:4).

His life and death are the fruit that gives eternal life. He is the living bread from heaven, and whoever eats of it will live for ever (John 6:51). He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11) and the Son of Man who came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10), the true winner of souls.

And Christ answers the last verse. God has made him our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) was recompensed in the earth for sins that were never his own, and he bore the “much more” that was due to the wicked and the sinner. For those who are in him the debt is paid, and what remains for them in this life is the loving discipline of a Father who treats them as sons (Hebrews 12:7–8). For those who refuse him the judgment remains, and God has appointed a day when he will judge the world in righteousness by the man he has ordained (Acts 17:31).

These proverbs show us a God who keeps accounts with perfect fairness. He sees the one who rises early to seek good, and he sees the one who plots harm. He lets riches fly away from those who lean on them and makes the righteous grow green. He watches over households and gives life through the lives of his people. He repays in this world, and he will repay fully at the end.

That is good news for the righteous, because God’s favour, his care and his correction all come from his love. It is a sober warning for the wicked, because God’s justice is certain. For everyone it points to Christ, in whom God’s justice and his mercy meet, and through whom the sinner who deserved the “much more” can be made righteous and brought into the household of God.