Proverbs 14:18

“The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going.” The simple person, pᵉthîy, is open, inexperienced and easily persuaded. Strong’s gives “silly”, in the sense of one who can be led astray. He usually means no harm, and his danger lies in taking every claim, offer and piece of advice at face value. The verb ʼâman, from a root meaning to build up or support, is the word for trusting or believing, and the simple man spends it on “every word”. That word, dâbâr, can also mean a matter or a thing, so his trust takes in claims, advice and offers alike. He leans his weight on whatever is said to him, whoever says it and whether it is true or false.

The prudent man, ʻârûwm, “looketh well”, bîyn, a verb that means to separate things in the mind, to distinguish and so to understand. What he examines is his “going”, ʼâshur, a word for a step. He weighs each step before he takes it and asks where it leads, and since a life is made of steps, his care shapes the whole direction of his life. The word “man” is supplied in English for clarity. Proverbs says elsewhere that the prudent foresee evil (Proverbs 22:3).

The New Testament carries this into the life of the church. Jesus tells us to beware of false prophets (Matthew 7:15), and John writes, “try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). The Bereans show what looking well to our going means in the things of God. They “received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11). They welcomed the teaching eagerly and checked it against Scripture, and prudence in matters of faith looks like that, together with prayer for discernment and the counsel of mature believers. Words reach us today from every side, from the news, advertising, posts that spread in an hour and teachers of every kind, and the proverb speaks to all of them.

“A wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rageth, and is confident.” The wise man, châkâm, is intelligent and skilful, and in Proverbs his skill is the art of living rightly before God. He is “fearing”, yârêʼ, the word for one who fears or is reverent. The verse leaves the object of his fear unnamed, and the rest of the book supplies it, for “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7) and the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10, Psalm 111:10). Proverbs also pronounces a blessing on the man who fears always (Proverbs 28:14).

People ask whether this fear means terror. It is reverence, awe and respect for God’s holiness, power and authority, the humble recognition that he rules, and it shows itself in a loving desire to honour and obey him. That reverence makes a man careful. He is alert to the danger of sin and to where a path will end.

Out of that fear the wise man “departeth from evil”. The verb çûwr means to turn off or turn aside, and the evil, raʻ, is anything bad, harmful or wicked. He sees it and deliberately turns his steps away.

The fool, kᵉçîyl, takes his name from a root meaning to be fat, and figuratively the word means stupid or silly. In Proverbs he is the man who disregards instruction (Proverbs 12:15). He “rageth”, ʻâbar, a verb that at root means to cross over and is used for movement of every kind. Here it pictures a man who plunges ahead heedlessly or bursts out in anger, with no restraint on his impulses. And he “is confident”, bâṭach, the usual word for trusting, which at root means to hurry to a place of refuge. The fool’s refuge is himself. His trust rests on his own judgment, so he walks straight into dangers the wise man has already seen and turned from. Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish builders (Matthew 7:24–27) shows the same two men and where each one ends.

“He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated.” The Hebrew behind “soon angry” reads literally “short of nose”. The adjective qâtsêr means short, whether in size, number, life, strength or temper. The noun ʼaph is properly the nose or nostril, and from the hard breathing of a person in passion it came to mean anger. A man who is short of nose has a short fuse, and his anger flares at once. Such a man “dealeth foolishly”. The verb ʻâsâh is the broadest word for doing or making, and what he does is ʼivveleth, folly. In anger he says and does things that damage his friendships, his name and himself, and some of them are hard to undo.

Proverbs comes back to this often. It praises the man who is slow to anger over the hasty (Proverbs 14:29), says that a hot-tempered man stirs up strife (Proverbs 15:18), and calls the one who is slow to anger the better man (Proverbs 16:32). James tells believers to be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger (James 1:19–20).

The second line turns from the hothead to the “man of wicked devices”, ʼîysh mᵉzimmâh. The word ʼîysh is a man as an individual, and mᵉzimmâh is a plan, usually an evil one, though elsewhere it can mean good sense or discretion. Here, as the KJV’s “wicked devices” shows, it means schemes laid to harm, deceive or use others. The angry man acts on impulse, and this man thinks ahead and plans his harm, so the verse sets sudden folly beside calculated malice. He “is hated”, sânêʼ, the plain word for hating. People come to see what he is, and his schemes leave him distrusted and alone. A psalm describes the wicked conceiving mischief (Psalm 7:14–16), and earlier in this chapter Proverbs warns of a way whose end is death (Proverbs 14:12).

Both men’s trouble begins in the heart. Proverbs tells us to keep the heart with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23), because our conduct flows from it. The answer to a heart that plots against others is the love Paul describes, which repays evil with good and overcomes evil with good (Romans 12:17–21). It goes together with honest prayer over our motives and asking God for wisdom, for whoever finds wisdom finds life (Proverbs 8:35).

“The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.” The simple and the prudent of verse 15 return, the same two words, and now we see where each one ends. The verb nâchal means to inherit or to come into possession. Folly becomes the simple man’s own lasting property. The word for folly, ʼivveleth, is the same word as “foolishly” in verse 17, and it means silliness or folly. A naive mind that never seeks wisdom drifts into folly as surely as an heir comes into what is left to him.

The prudent “are crowned”, kâthar. The root means to enclose or surround. In a friendly sense it means to crown, and in a hostile one to besiege. Knowledge encircles the prudent like a crown on the head, and a crown marks honour, dignity and standing before others. That knowledge, daʻath, includes skill and discernment, the kind that guides a whole life. Proverbs counts wisdom more precious than rubies (Proverbs 8:11), and James speaks of the wise man who shows his wisdom in a good life lived with meekness (James 3:13). This knowledge begins where Proverbs says all knowledge begins, in the fear of the LORD.

“The evil bow before the good; and the wicked at the gates of the righteous.” The evil, raʻ, the same word as the evil the wise man turns from in verse 16, here means evil people. They “bow”, shâchach, a verb for sinking down or being brought low, the posture of someone who submits or pleads. They bow “before” the good, and the word for “before”, pânîym, is literally the face. The good, ṭôwb, are those whose lives are good in the widest sense. The wicked, râshâʻ, are people actively in the wrong, guilty and ungodly. The righteous, tsaddîyq, a word from the verb tsâdaq, are the just, whose lives agree with God’s standard of right.

The gate, shaʻar, is an opening, a door or gate. The gates of an Israelite city were the heart of its public life. Elders and judges sat there to hear cases and give judgment, and trade, announcements and gatherings all took place there. To stand at the gates of the righteous is to come to them for judgment, favour or mercy, in full view of everyone. The proud who once despised the good end up bowing to them in public. Isaiah speaks of the nations bowing before Zion (Isaiah 60:14).

The verse rests on God’s justice. A psalm calls us to wait on the LORD and shows the end of the wicked (Psalm 37:34–36). Another speaks of the wicked who flourish for a while (Psalm 92:7), and Isaiah sets the lot of the righteous against the lot of the wicked (Isaiah 3:10–11). God is a righteous judge, and in his time he sets all things right.

Paul calls Christ “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), and in him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Each of these proverbs finds its fullest picture in him. He looked well to his going. In the wilderness he saw through every word the tempter spoke (Matthew 4:1–11), he exposed the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23), and he set his face to go to Jerusalem and the cross (Luke 9:51).

He feared the Father with perfect reverence and departed from evil all his life. He was without sin (Hebrews 4:15), obedient unto death (Philippians 2:8), and in Gethsemane he yielded his will to the Father’s (Luke 22:42). His plans were wholly good. He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10) and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45), and the hatred he met came from a world that rejected him (John 1:10–11). Through his death he reconciles to God those who were once his enemies (Colossians 1:21–22).

He was crowned with glory and honour through his suffering (Hebrews 2:9), and God has made him our wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30). In him we are made “wise unto salvation” (2 Timothy 3:15), and God gives “the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him” (Ephesians 1:17), so that we grow past being tossed about by “every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14). The crown of verse 18 points on to the crown of life (Revelation 2:10) and the crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4:8) given to those who follow him faithfully.

The bowing of verse 19 reaches its fullest form in him as well. On the cross he triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15), and a day is coming when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:10–11), the knees of all who opposed him among them. He is “Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1).

These five sayings show a God who wants his people to see clearly. He calls the simple to grow wise and promises them prudence. He honours careful and humble living, he sees the angry heart and the scheming heart alike, and he crowns with knowledge those who seek it. He is also the judge before whom every wrong will be set right, so the good who are mocked or overlooked now have his word that the evil will bow before them. In Christ he has given us his wisdom in person, the one who weighed every step and kept the way to the end. All of it begins with the fear of the LORD, which is where knowledge starts.