Proverbs 15:8

Verse 8 sets two acts of worship side by side and gives the LORD’s verdict on each. A sacrifice, zebach, comes from a root meaning to slaughter, and it refers to the animal offered to God or to the act of offering it. Sacrifices stood at the centre of Israel’s worship. The law of Moses gave detailed instructions for the offerings, which were brought for atonement, for thanksgiving and for fellowship with God, and the temple in Jerusalem became the place where they were made. A sacrifice was something God himself had commanded. Yet when the wicked bring one, the LORD calls it an abomination.

The word for abomination, tôwʻêbah, means something utterly wrong and detestable, and it is also used of an idol. Scripture uses it for idolatry, for sexual sin and for dishonest dealing, and here it is used of an offering. The one who brings it is râshâʻ, wicked, a person whose life is morally wrong and set against God. His offering may be correct in every outward detail and costly besides, but his heart makes it offensive to the LORD, because he brings it while living in rebellion against the God he claims to honour. That is hypocrisy, and God sees through it.

The second line answers the first. The upright, yâshâr, are those who are straight in conduct and character, whose lives are set toward God’s will. Their prayer, tᵉphillâh, comes from a verb meaning to judge, which came to mean to intercede and to pray. Prayer is the simplest of offerings, yet it is the LORD’s delight. That word, râtsôwn, means favour, goodwill, pleasure and acceptance. God accepts the prayer of the upright and is pleased with it, and it shows his desire for close fellowship with his people. The name behind “the LORD” in this verse is Yᵉhôvâh. James says the same of prayer in his own words: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16).

The prophets brought this message to Israel again and again. Samuel told Saul that “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22), and through Isaiah the LORD rejected the many sacrifices of a disobedient people and called them to turn from their evil (Isaiah 1:11–17). Jesus quoted Isaiah against people who honoured God with their lips while their heart was far from him (Matthew 15:8–9). Psalm 51:17 speaks of the broken and contrite heart that God welcomes. In each place God weighs the worshipper before the worship, and the form, cost or public show of an offering makes it acceptable only when the life behind it belongs to him.

Verse 9 widens the view from worship to the whole of life. The same word, tôwʻêbah, comes back, and this time it is the way of the wicked that the LORD detests. The word derek means a road or path, and figuratively a course of life. In Proverbs it is the constant picture of the life a person chooses: its direction, its habits, its character and where it ends. Verse 8 speaks of what the wicked man brings to the altar, verse 9 speaks of the whole road he walks, and the LORD detests both.

God’s hatred of wickedness comes from his holiness and justice. Psalm 11:5 says that his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence, and Proverbs 6:16–19 lists the things the LORD hates. The first psalm sets the way of the righteous against the way of the ungodly (Psalm 1), and Proverbs does the same from beginning to end.

The second line turns to God’s love: “but he loveth him that followeth after righteousness.” The verb ʼâhab means to love, to have affection for a person. The one he loves is described by râdaph, a verb meaning to run after, pursue or chase. It is often used of pursuing an enemy, and here it is used figuratively of following after a goal. The goal is tsᵉdâqâh, righteousness, which means rightness, justice and integrity, a life in line with God’s will toward him and toward one’s neighbour. Moses told Israel to do “that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:18), and Amos cried, “let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24). The way of the wicked is detestable to God, and of the good man a psalm says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way” (Psalm 37:23).

So the LORD cares about how we live. He is near and engaged, holding firm moral preferences, and he gives his favour and affection to those who chase after what is right.

Verse 10 speaks of the person who has left the right path. Correction, mûwçâr, comes from yasar, to discipline or instruct. It covers chastening, warning and instruction, the whole training that forms a person in wisdom and righteousness, and it often hurts. In Israel it was part of how parents taught children and teachers taught their pupils, and receiving it was a sign of humility. The one who finds it grievous is “him that forsaketh the way”. The verb ʻâzab means to loosen, let go or abandon, and here it describes someone who has deliberately walked away from the right path. The word for way in this verse is ʼôrach, a path, which shares the English word with derek in verse 9.

“Grievous” renders raʻ, which means bad, evil, harmful or unpleasant. The trouble lies in the heart that hears the correction. Someone who has set his heart on folly hears every attempt to turn him back as an attack on his own desires and the excuses he has made for them. Pride and self-will make the truth painful to him.

The second line goes further: “he that hateth reproof shall die.” Reproof, tôwkêchâh, is rebuke or admonition that reasons with a person and shows him his error. To hate it is to turn away from any word that challenges the course he has chosen, an unwillingness to answer to anyone or to change. Correction that feels heavy can still be taken to heart, while hatred of it leads to death.

Proverbs returns to this again and again. It joins the love of instruction to the love of knowledge (Proverbs 12:1), it begins with “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7), and it shows wisdom calling to people who refused her until calamity came on them (Proverbs 1:24–32). It sets the path of the just, shining brighter and brighter, against the way of the wicked, who stumble in darkness (Proverbs 4:18–19), as the first psalm ends with the LORD knowing the way of the righteous while the way of the ungodly perishes (Psalm 1:6). Hebrews tells us that God’s discipline, painful as it is, comes from his love, for he chastens every son he receives (Hebrews 12:5–11).

Verse 11 explains why God can judge the heart behind a sacrifice or a way of life. “Hell” is shᵉʼôwl, Sheol, the world of the dead, the grave or the pit, where all who die go. “Destruction” is ʼăbaddôwn, Abaddon, from a root meaning to perish. It can mean a perishing, or the place of destruction itself, and beside Sheol it is another name for the realm of the dead, or for its depths. To the living these places are hidden and out of reach. “Before the LORD” means that they lie open to him, fully seen and known. His knowledge reaches even the realm of the dead, and death itself is under his rule.

From there the verse argues from the greater to the lesser: “how much more then the hearts of the children of men?” If God sees into the depths of the grave, the human heart is all the more open to him. The word for hearts here, libbâh, is the feminine form of the word for heart. It means the inner person, the seat of feeling, thought, will and character, from which our thoughts and actions flow. “The children of men” are all human beings, so no one’s motives or intentions are hidden from the LORD.

Earlier in the chapter we read, “The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3). That verse speaks of God seeing what people do, and this one carries his sight down to the realm of the dead and into the heart. Scripture says the same in many places: “for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7), and “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways” (Jeremiah 17:9–10). The psalmist asks where he could flee from God’s presence and finds him there even in the depths (Psalm 139:7–8). All things are naked and opened to the eyes of him with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:13), and God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing (Ecclesiastes 12:14).

This truth is both a comfort and a warning. The person who is misunderstood by others is fully known by God, intentions, struggles and all. The person who hides sin behind a good appearance is seen just as clearly. Because God knows everything, his judgment is perfectly just.

Verse 12 draws the portrait of a man who has made himself unteachable. The scorner, lûwts, is a scoffer, someone who derides others, and the same verb can also mean to interpret or speak for another. In Proverbs the scorner is marked by arrogance and mockery, with contempt for wisdom, for instruction and often for God himself. He enjoys deriding those who try to correct him and counts himself above reproach.

“A scorner loveth not one that reproveth him.” The verb for reproving, yâkach, means to decide, rebuke, correct, convince or convict, and to reason together. The scorner resents the person who does this to him, because he will not admit a fault. He takes reproof as a personal attack and an insult. In verse 9 the LORD loves the one who pursues righteousness, and here the English word “loveth” comes back in the scorner’s refusal to love the one who would set him right.

“Neither will he go unto the wise.” The wise, châkâm, are skilful and discerning in practical, moral and spiritual things, people who live by God’s order and give sound counsel. In Israel the wise, such as respected elders and teachers, were sought out as counsellors, and going to them was an act of humility, a willingness to let their insight guide one’s life. The scorner avoids them because they are the very people most likely to reprove him. So he cuts himself off from the help he most needs and stays in his folly.

The scoffer differs from someone who simply disagrees or offers criticism. A person who disagrees can still be persuaded by reasons and evidence, and a critic may speak out of a real desire to see things done well. The scorner is defined by a mocking contempt for wisdom itself. That is why Proverbs warns that “he that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame” (Proverbs 9:7–8). A few verses earlier in this chapter we read, “A fool despiseth his father’s instruction: but he that regardeth reproof is prudent” (Proverbs 15:5). The wise man listens to counsel (Proverbs 12:15), the book is written so that we may receive instruction (Proverbs 1:2–3), and poverty and shame come to the one who refuses it (Proverbs 13:18). Behind all of this stands the truth James gives: God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (James 4:6).

These proverbs lead us to Jesus Christ. Every one of us has walked the way verse 9 calls an abomination, for all have sinned, and God declares righteous by his grace those who believe in Jesus (Romans 3:21–26). Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), who offered himself once to put away sin (Hebrews 9:26–28). His sacrifice, offered in perfect righteousness and obedience, was the very opposite of the sacrifice of the wicked. It pleased the Father and established a better covenant (Hebrews 8:6). He is also the upright one whose prayers always delighted God. He often withdrew into the wilderness to pray (Luke 5:16), and his prayer for his disciples fills John 17. Through faith in him our prayers and worship are accepted, because we are accepted in the beloved (Ephesians 1:6).

Jesus called himself “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21), and Paul longed to be found in him with the righteousness that comes through faith (Philippians 3:9). The same grace that saves us teaches us to live soberly, righteously and godly, so that by his Spirit we really do follow after righteousness (Titus 2:11–14).

Christ is the Word made flesh (John 1:14) and the power and wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), the wise one to whom the scorner refuses to go. His call to repent was the reproof that verse 10 speaks of. Many rulers would not believe in him (John 7:48), they derided him as he hung on the cross (Luke 23:35), and in their blindness they crucified the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8). Yet the cross they scorned is the power of God to those who are saved (1 Corinthians 1:18), and those who receive his correction find life, which he came to give more abundantly (John 10:10).

Jesus also showed the knowledge of hearts that verse 11 ascribes to the LORD. He knew from the beginning who did not believe (John 6:64), and he perceived in his spirit what his critics were thinking (Mark 2:8). Peter applied to him the promise that God would not leave his soul in hell (Acts 2:27). He rose as the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18), and he holds the keys of hell and of death (Revelation 1:18). The one who sees our hearts as they are also cleanses them, so that we draw near to God with hearts sprinkled clean.

These proverbs show us a God who looks past the outward form of worship to the person who offers it. Nothing is hidden from him, neither the depths of the grave nor the secret motives of any heart. Yet the God who sees so clearly takes delight in the plain prayer of the upright and loves the one who runs after righteousness. Our quiet prayers, offered from a heart that belongs to him, are heard and treasured.

He also corrects. Correction is heavy to the one who has left the way, and the scorner shuts himself off from it, but for those who will be taught it is part of his love, the way a father trains the son he delights in. The proverbs leave us with a holy God who sees all, a loving God who delights in those who seek him, and, in Christ, a way back for everyone who has wandered from the path.