Proverbs 15:28

These verses belong to the long collection of single sayings in Proverbs 10–29. Each one is a proverb in two halves, and the second half states the opposite of the first, a way of teaching often called antithetical parallelism. Setting the proud beside the widow, or the gushing mouth beside the careful heart, makes each truth sharp and easy to remember.

Chapter 15 keeps coming back to the heart and the tongue. It opens with “A soft answer turneth away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1), calls a wholesome tongue a tree of life (Proverbs 15:4), and speaks of the joy of a word spoken in due season (Proverbs 15:23). It also reminds us that the eyes of the LORD are in every place (Proverbs 15:3), so every thought and word in these verses is spoken in his sight. Right after our passage comes a saying about the light of the eyes rejoicing the heart (Proverbs 15:30). Behind the whole book stands its first principle, that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7).

Verse 25 sets two people side by side. One is proud, gêʼeh, a word from a root meaning to be lofty. The proud man is haughty and self-exalting. He trusts in his own strength and achievements and sets himself above others, and above God’s law and wisdom too. The other is a widow, ʼalmânâh. In Israel a widow had lost the husband who protected her, and without a husband or son to stand up for her she was easily exploited, pushed into poverty, or robbed of her inheritance, above all her land.

The LORD acts toward both. His name here is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of the God of Israel, and he is the one who does what this verse says. The ruin of the proud is his own deliberate judgment, and the widow’s safety is his own work of mercy. In one sentence we see him as the righteous judge who opposes pride and the compassionate defender of the defenceless.

Verse 26 reaches past what people do to what they plan. The thoughts, machăshâbâh, are contrivances, intentions or plans. The word covers good counsel as well as malicious plots, and here it means the designs and schemes of the wicked that take shape in the mind before they are ever carried out.

Those schemes are an abomination, tôwʻêbah, something considered utterly wrong and detestable, a word that is also used of an idol. The law uses it for idolatry, child sacrifice, sexual perversion and unjust dealing. Here the same verdict falls on what the wicked are thinking. God’s judgment begins with the intention, at the place where evil starts, and he finds wicked plans as offensive as the open acts they lead to.

Verse 27 turns to money. “He that is greedy of gain” uses the verb bâtsaʻ, a root meaning to break off, to plunder, to gain greedily, together with betsaʻ, gain. Making a profit was a normal part of life in Israel, and wisdom marked the line between honest profit and greedy gain, which is gain taken unjustly, by exploiting others, or out of covetousness. The greedy man wants wealth by any means, even at someone else’s cost.

He “troubleth his own house.” The verb ʻâkar properly means to roil water, to stir it up, and figuratively to disturb or afflict. The house is bayith again, the same word as in verse 25, and it means the whole household: family, servants, land, livelihood and good name. Where verse 25 has the LORD pulling down the house of the proud, here the greedy man stirs up trouble in his own house from the inside. That trouble can come as neglect of the family for the sake of work and money, as the shame and legal ruin that follow dishonest dealing once it comes to light, as strife and distrust over money, or as the anxiety and secrecy of keeping up a life paid for by ill-gotten gain.

Proverbs says the same elsewhere. The one who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind (Proverbs 11:29), and the one who makes haste to be rich shall be found guilty (Proverbs 28:20). The Preacher adds that the one who loves silver stays hungry for more silver (Ecclesiastes 5:10). The way wealth is gained matters as much as how much of it there is.

Verse 28 sets the heart of the righteous against the mouth of the wicked. The heart, lêb, is the center of the whole person in Hebrew thought: understanding, will, moral choice and character, along with the emotions. The righteous man’s answer starts in his heart, and the wicked man’s words start and stop at his mouth.

The heart of the righteous “studieth to answer.” The verb hâgâh means to meditate, to ponder, even to murmur to oneself while thinking something through. The righteous man weighs his words before he speaks, asking whether they are true and fitting and what they will do to the one who hears them. The wise man, the chakham, was honoured in Israel for words like these, measured and discerning.

The mouth of the wicked “poureth out evil things.” The verb nâbaʻ means to gush forth, like water from a spring. Words come out of the wicked man in a stream, abundant and unchecked, and what comes out is evil, raʻ: harmful, malicious, deceitful or foolish words that show what is inside him. Jesus says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). Proverbs says that death and life are in the power of the tongue (Proverbs 18:21), and James tells us to be swift to hear and slow to speak (James 1:19).

This counsel fits an age of instant messages and quick comments very well. It is easy to pour out words online in a moment, and slander, unverified accusations and thoughtless anger spread that way. The righteous heart studies its answer before it posts, as much as before it speaks.

Verse 29 names the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, again, the personal and covenant-keeping God. He is “far,” râchôwq, a word for remoteness, distance or separation, used literally and figuratively. Here the distance is one of relationship and favour. The wicked, râshâʻ, are those who defy God’s commands, often by injustice, oppression and idolatry, and by their unrepentant choices they put themselves outside his blessing and his help. Isaiah gives the reason: “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).

“But he heareth the prayer of the righteous.” The verb shâmaʻ means to hear with attention and understanding, and it often leads to action. When God hears the prayer of the righteous, he listens, considers what they ask, and is inclined to answer. The psalm says, “The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth” (Psalm 34:17), and James says that “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man” avails much (James 5:16).

Verse 29 leaves us with a hard question, because none of us is righteous on our own. Paul writes, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” and in the same passage he shows how God gives his righteousness to those who believe (Romans 3:21–26). The distance between the LORD and the wicked is the very gap Christ came to close: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Those made righteous in Christ are the righteous whose prayer the Father hears, and they may “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14–16).

The other sayings meet in Christ too. Against the proud stands the Son who “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,” and humbled himself to death on the cross (Philippians 2:7–8). He told those who rejected him that their house was left to them desolate (Matthew 23:38). He condemned those who devour widows’ houses (Mark 12:40), praised the poor widow whose two mites outweighed all the gifts of the rich (Mark 12:43–44), and raised a widow’s only son at Nain (Luke 7:11–17). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and in him the poor in spirit receive the kingdom (Matthew 5:3) and a secure inheritance (Ephesians 1:11).

He is the pure one of verse 26, whose words are “spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). His hearers wondered at his gracious words (Luke 4:22) and at the authority with which he taught (Matthew 7:29). Through him our hearts are sprinkled clean (Hebrews 10:22), and God gives the new heart and new spirit he promised (Ezekiel 36:26). He knew when to keep silent, and before Pilate he kept his peace (John 19:9). By his Spirit he grows in his people the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), so that they learn to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

He also lived out verse 27. He refused the devil’s offer of all the kingdoms of the world (Matthew 4:8–10), and he taught that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). He came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). He calls us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33) and to build our house on the rock of his words (Matthew 7:24–27).

These five sayings give us a God who is close at hand in the everyday business of life. He watches over the boundary stones of a widow’s field, the plans a person makes in private, the money that changes hands, and the words spoken in a hurry or after careful thought. Pride and greed and wicked schemes are his concern, and he will bring them down. The weak are his concern too, and he stands guard over what is theirs.

Above all, these verses end with a God who hears. The same LORD who keeps his distance from the wicked bends his ear to the prayer of the righteous, and through Christ the way to him is open to anyone who comes in repentance and faith. That gives every honest prayer a sure footing, and it gives the widow, the wronged and the weak a defender who is mightier than anyone who would harm them.