Proverbs 13:12

“Only by pride cometh contention.” The word for pride, zâdôwn, comes from the root zûd, to boil up or to act proudly, and it means arrogance, insolence and presumption. It is the swollen self-confidence that is sure it knows best and sets itself above every authority, human or divine. Contention, matstsâh, is a quarrel, strife or dispute. A proud person refuses to listen, to compromise or to admit a fault, and when a will like that meets any other will, strife follows.

Proverbs comes back to pride again and again. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18), and “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility” (Proverbs 18:12). James gives God’s own answer to it: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). Pride sets a person against God before it sets him against his neighbour. Scripture traces the first sin to the same desire, when man reached to be like God, and from there came the separation from God and the strife among people that followed.

In Israel’s life, where the honour of a family and the peace of a whole community hung together, pride was known as a force that broke things apart. It brought disgrace on the proud and quarrels on everyone around them.

“But with the well advised is wisdom.” The phrase “the well advised” is noʿatsim, from yâʻats, to advise, counsel or deliberate. It describes people who take counsel, weigh a matter carefully, and gladly receive guidance from others. Wisdom, chokmâh, from châkam, to be wise, is practical skill in living: the ability to judge soundly, to understand a hard situation, and to deal rightly with other people. The verse places that wisdom “with” the humble who ask.

In Israel, seeking counsel was an honoured practice. It showed respect for the wisdom of others and an honest sense of one’s own limits, and kings, judges and heads of households were expected to have trusted counsellors and to listen to them. Proverbs commends the multitude of counsellors (Proverbs 11:14) and says that a wise man will hear and increase learning (Proverbs 1:5).

The two halves of the verse answer each other. The person who takes advice is the opposite of the proud person who will hear nobody, and so the wisdom and peace of the second line stand against the strife of the first. The surest counsel comes from God’s word, and with it the counsel of godly people who know it well.

“Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished.” Wealth, hôwn, means riches or substance, and by implication enough. Vanity, hebel, has the base sense of breath or vapour, and in almost all its uses it means futility, emptiness or something worthless. It is the word of Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Wealth gotten by vanity is wealth that comes out of emptiness: gain from dishonest trade, fraud and exploitation, from gambling, and from schemes to get rich quickly, with no honest, productive work underneath it. Such wealth “shall be diminished”, mâʻaṭ, to become small or few. It came like a breath and it goes like one, sometimes through penalties or bad ventures, and always because it has nothing solid to stand on.

God’s law in Israel condemned theft, fraud, and false weights and measures (Leviticus 19:35–36), and Proverbs warns again about treasure gained by deceit, which is fleeting (Proverbs 21:6), and about the man in a hurry to be rich, who comes to poverty (Proverbs 28:22). Paul warns about the desire to be rich and the love of money, and the ruin they bring (1 Timothy 6:9–10).

“But he that gathereth by labour shall increase.” To gather, qâbats, is to collect or assemble. The KJV’s “by labour” is literally “by hand”, yâd, and the hand stands for the work it does. With a preposition, as here, it marks the one through whom a thing is done, so this is wealth gathered by a person’s own effort and skill. Such a person “shall increase”, râbâh, to grow many or multiply. Israel’s wealth was mostly land, livestock and the fruit of daily work, and work itself was God’s gift from the beginning, when he put man in the garden to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15). Another proverb says it plainly: “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich” (Proverbs 10:4).

So the way wealth is gained matters as much as the wealth itself. Riches gathered honestly and patiently rest on a firm foundation and carry God’s blessing, along with a clear conscience and peace of mind.

“Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” Hope, tôwcheleth, is expectation, an earnest looking forward to something. Deferred is mâshak, a verb meaning to draw or pull, with drawing out and prolonging among its senses, and here it describes a hope stretched out over a long wait. The heart, lêb, is the centre of a person: mind, will, feelings and character together. To be sick, châlâh, is to be weak or ill. So a hope that keeps being put off wears a person down at the very centre, bringing disappointment, discouragement and weariness, and sometimes a sickness the body feels too. In Israel such hopes were often concrete ones, for children, for a harvest, for the safety of the nation, or for the keeping of God’s covenant promises, and the delay of any of them was a real grief.

Scripture is honest here. It names the pain of waiting plainly, and it gives no rebuke to the one who feels it. God knows what a long wait does to the heart he made.

“But when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.” Desire, taʼăvâh, is a longing or craving, held over a long time. “Cometh” is bôwʼ, to come, and the longing arrives at last. The tree of life, ʻêts (tree) and chay (life, living), first stands in the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9). Proverbs uses the same picture for wisdom, which is a tree of life to those who lay hold on her (Proverbs 3:18), and it stands again by the river in the new Jerusalem (Revelation 22:1–2). To call a fulfilled longing a tree of life says that it restores and refreshes the whole person, body and soul together, far beyond a passing pleasure.

The proverb describes what people go through, and the rest of Scripture shows where to carry it. Proverbs tells us to commit our works to the LORD (Proverbs 16:3), who holds the timing of every outcome. The hope God gives does not put us to shame (Romans 5:5), and faith holds on to things hoped for and not yet seen (Hebrews 11:1). A human hope can be delayed and can break, while God’s promises stand firm, whether they are fulfilled in this life or at the end of the age.

“Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed.” To despise, bûwz, is to disrespect or hold in contempt, to treat something as worthless and beneath notice. The word, dâbâr, means word or speech, and in a separate sense a matter or thing. Here it is God’s word, his revealed will and instruction, which carries his own authority. Whoever scorns it “shall be destroyed”, châbal, to be ruined, corrupted or brought to nothing. That ruin reaches the whole of a life, its peace, its relationships and its soul, and it ends under God’s judgment. Isaiah speaks of those who cast away the law of the LORD (Isaiah 5:24), and Jeremiah of wise men put to shame because they rejected his word (Jeremiah 8:9).

“But he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.” To fear, yârêʼ, is reverent awe, a deep respect for God’s authority that leads to obedience and trust. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7) and of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). The commandment, mitsvâh, is God’s specific precept. The one who fears it “shall be rewarded”, shâlam, to repay or make good, from a root whose first sense is to be safe or whole. His reward is a full and fitting return from God, which includes wholeness and peace as well as any outward good, and it stands as the opposite of the ruin in the first line.

This is the pattern of the covenant blessings and curses in Deuteronomy 28, and of the two ways in the Psalms. The man who delights in the law of the LORD is blessed and fruitful (Psalm 1:1–3), and the way of the ungodly perishes (Psalm 1:6). Psalm 19 praises the LORD’s law as perfect and finds reward in keeping it (Psalm 19:7–11), and Psalm 128 calls blessed everyone who fears the LORD and walks in his ways (Psalm 128:1). Jesus called blessed those who hear the word of God and keep it (Luke 11:28), and James calls us to be doers of the word as well as hearers (James 1:22–25).

“The law of the wise is a fountain of life.” Law is tôwrâh, instruction or teaching, the word used of the law of Moses, and here it covers the whole body of teaching that the wise pass on, from parents to children and from teachers to those they train, all of it rooted in the fear of the LORD and his truth. A fountain, mâqôwr, is properly something dug, a spring or source of water, and it is used figuratively of happiness and wisdom. In the dry land of Israel a spring that never failed meant life itself, and that is what wise teaching is to the one who receives it, a constant source of refreshment and strength. Proverbs says the same of understanding, which “is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it” (Proverbs 16:22), and it tells us to keep the heart, for out of it are the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). Behind every such fountain is God, who calls himself the fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13).

“To depart from the snares of death.” To depart, çûwr, is to turn aside or move away. A snare, môwqêsh, is a trap, literally one for catching animals and figuratively anything that brings a person to ruin. Every hunter’s trap in Israel was hidden, and so are the snares of sin and folly that lead to death, in body and in soul. Wise teaching gives the foresight to see the trap before the foot is in it and the will to turn away. Proverbs describes how wisdom entering the heart keeps a person from the evil way (Proverbs 2:10–15), and the same chapter as this verse shows the two ends of the road: the one who guards his mouth keeps his life (Proverbs 13:3), while poverty and shame come to the one who refuses instruction (Proverbs 13:18).

This verse gathers up the ones before it. The counsel of verse 10 and the word and commandment of verse 13 meet here in the teaching of the wise, and it leads to life.

These proverbs find their fullest meaning in Jesus Christ. Against the pride of verse 10 stands his humility. Though he was God, he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6–7). He took counsel from his Father in everything, doing what he saw the Father do (John 5:19) and speaking what the Father gave him to speak (John 12:49). By his obedience he broke down “the middle wall of partition” between God and people and between one people and another (Ephesians 2:14). In him we put off the old self, with its pride and quarrels, and put on the new (Colossians 3:8–10), and the peace of God keeps our hearts (Philippians 4:7).

Verse 11 points beyond earthly riches. Jesus warned against treasure on earth, which decays and is stolen, and told us to lay up treasure in heaven (Matthew 6:19–20). He told us to labour for the food that endures to everlasting life, which he gives (John 6:27). His own labour, to the cross, brought an increase beyond measure in the salvation of his people.

The deepest hope of verse 12, put off since Eden, is reconciliation with God and life with him, and it is met in Christ. He is the bread of life (John 6:35), the giver of living water (John 4:10), and the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). All the promises of God find their yes in him (2 Corinthians 1:20), and the hope of his people now is his return and the city where the tree of life stands.

The word of verse 13 has its fullest form in him. He is the Word through whom all things were made (John 1:1–3), in whom all the treasures of wisdom are hid (Colossians 2:3), the Lamb of God (John 1:29). To despise God’s word is in the end to despise him, and he is the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him (Hebrews 5:9).

The fountain of verse 14 is his to give. God has made Christ our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30). Of the one who believes in him he said that “out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38), and he came so that his people might have life more abundantly (John 10:10). By his death he destroyed the power of the devil, who had the power of death, and set free those held all their lives by the fear of it (Hebrews 2:14–15). The snares of death have lost their hold on everyone who is his.

In five short sayings God shows us how his world works. He gives grace to the humble, he blesses honest work, he knows the ache of a long wait, and he repays those who reverence his word. His instruction is a fountain, and the life in it comes from him.

That gives us much to hold. A quarrel can be traced to its root and healed by humility. Wealth gathered slowly and honestly rests on something firm. A hope that has been put off for years is a grief God himself names, and he has promised a tree of life at the end of the road. His word, scorned by many, is still the way of life, and in Christ its promises are already ours.