Proverbs 22:10

Verse 6 speaks to parents and to everyone who has a hand in raising the young: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” The verb for train up, chânak, properly means to narrow, and it is used for initiating, disciplining and dedicating, the same word used for dedicating a house or the temple to its purpose. Training in this sense is purposeful. It sets a young life on a particular road and shapes its habits and character from the start. The child, naʻar, is a boy or young person anywhere from infancy to youth, in the years when a life is most open to being shaped.

In Israel this work belonged to the household, and fathers especially were charged with teaching their children the ways of the LORD along with the skills of daily life. Moses told the people to keep God’s words in their hearts and teach them diligently to their children at home and on the road (Deuteronomy 6:6–7), and to make known to their children and grandchildren what their own eyes had seen (Deuteronomy 4:9). A psalm tells of fathers handing on the praises of the LORD so that the next generation might set their hope in God (Psalm 78:4–7), and Paul tells fathers to bring their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

The word for way, derek, is a road or path, and so a whole course of life. It is the same word as in verse 5, where thorns and snares lie in “the way of the froward”, so the two verses stand side by side: one road full of traps, and another into which a child can be trained. When he is old (zâqên, to be aged), he will keep to it, and the verb behind “depart”, çûwr, means to turn off, decline or withdraw. The training given in youth bears its fruit across the whole of life, right into old age.

Verse 15 belongs with verse 6, and together they give both halves of raising a child: training in the right way, and correcting what pulls away from it. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child.” The word ʼivveleth comes from the same root as the word for fool, and in Proverbs it is a moral folly: stubbornness, self-will and a disregard for wise counsel and for God’s instruction. It is bound, qâshar, tied or fastened, in the heart, the centre of the will, the affections and the mind. Children come into the world with this pull toward folly already in them, and Scripture says the same of us all. David confesses that he was shapen in iniquity (Psalm 51:5), and after the flood the LORD says that the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21). Left to itself the folly stays where it is, and so it has to be met.

“But the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” The rod, shêbeṭ, is a stick, staff, club or sceptre, and the same word also means a tribe. In Israel a rod was a shepherd’s staff for guiding and protecting the flock, a king’s sceptre and a tool of discipline. Here it is joined to correction (mûwçâr), and its work is to drive the folly far from the child and leave room for wisdom. Proverbs says the same elsewhere: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Proverbs 13:24). God treats his own children the same way: “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” (Hebrews 12:7). Correction given in love is a parent’s care for the child’s future, and it mirrors the Father’s care for us.

Verse 1 sets the tone for the whole passage. “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.” A name, shêm, is what a person is called, and by implication his honour, standing and character. In Israel a good name meant being known for integrity, trustworthiness and honest dealing, and in a close-knit community that standing shaped a person’s influence and opportunities and reached to his whole family. The word good, ṭôwb, is the broadest Hebrew word for what is good, covering what is pleasant, excellent and fine. The verb behind “rather to be chosen”, bâchar, is the ordinary word for choosing, so the verse puts a choice before us and tells us which to take.

The second line says the same thing in other words. Loving favour stands beside a good name, and silver and gold beside great riches. The word for favour, chên, means graciousness, favour or charm: the goodwill a person finds with others and with God. Jesus himself “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). Wealth can be lost, and a good name and the goodwill of others last, as the Preacher says in nearly the same words: “A good name is better than precious ointment” (Ecclesiastes 7:1).

The proverb weighs one thing against another and states plainly which is worth more. Money has its uses throughout Proverbs, and here it is put in its place below character. Jesus tells us to lay up treasure in heaven, where it is safe from moth, rust and thieves (Matthew 6:19–21), and Paul tells us to think on whatever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely and of good report (Philippians 4:8). A good name is built over a lifetime out of exactly those things.

“The rich and poor meet together: the LORD is the maker of them all” (verse 2). The rich man, ʻâshîyr, has abundant goods, and the poor man, rûwsh, is destitute. They meet, pâgash, which means to come upon or encounter one another. They live in the same towns and walk the same streets, and they share birth, life and death. The second line gives the reason they belong together: the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, Israel’s covenant God, made them both. The verb ʻâsâh is the broadest Hebrew word for doing and making. Every person, whatever his purse, came from the same hand, so pride in wealth and shame in poverty both lose their footing.

A later proverb has the same shape: “The poor and the deceitful man meet together: the LORD lighteneth both their eyes” (Proverbs 29:13). Elihu speaks of a God who shows princes and the rich no partiality over the poor, because all of them are the work of his hands (Job 34:19). So the man who oppresses the poor dishonours the God who made him (Proverbs 14:31), and James warns the church against honouring the rich man in fine clothing over the poor man in vile raiment (James 2:1–4). Israel’s law made room for the poor at harvest, leaving the gleanings of field and vineyard for them (Leviticus 19:9–10, Deuteronomy 24:19–22). The proverb leaves the difference between rich and poor in place and gives both the same worth before their Maker.

“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (verse 7). This proverb describes how money works in a fallen world. The verb for rule, mâshal, is the plain word for ruling or having dominion, and the rich hold that kind of power over the poor even without any office, because they have more options and can set the terms. The second line gives one clear case of it. The borrower becomes servant, ʻebed, the word for a servant, slave or bondman, to the one who lent to him.

In Israel this could be literal. A family whose debts could not be paid might enter the service of a creditor to work them off. The law of Moses set limits on this and ordered a release in the year of jubilee (Leviticus 25:10), yet debt still weighed hard on the poor and narrowed their freedom. So Proverbs warns against putting up surety for another man’s debts (Proverbs 6:1–5), and does so again a few verses after this passage (Proverbs 22:26–27). When the LORD promised to bless Israel, he promised that they would lend to many nations (Deuteronomy 15:6). Paul’s charge is “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another” (Romans 13:8), and Jesus warns, “No man can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24).

“He that hath a bountiful eye shall be blessed; for he giveth of his bread to the poor” (verse 9). In Hebrew the bountiful eye is a good eye, ṭôwb joined to ʻayin, eye. It was a common way of describing a generous, kindly and ungrudging person, and its opposite, an evil eye, described someone stingy or envious. The eye stands for the way a person looks at others and at what he has. A good eye sees a neighbour’s need and wants to meet it.

The second line shows that eye at work. He gives of his bread (lechem), the staple of every meal, and so he gives from what he lives on, often at some cost to himself. The poor here, dal, are the weak, thin and low, and Strong’s explains the word as properly “dangling”. Such a man shall be blessed, bârak, a verb that properly means to kneel and so to bless. When God blesses, he confers good, and Proverbs promises that good to the generous: “The liberal soul shall be made fat” (Proverbs 11:25), and “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty” (Proverbs 11:24). The blessing can include provision, and it also takes in peace, favour and a good name, all from the God who is himself the great Giver.

Israel’s law wrote this generosity into daily life through the gleanings left in the field (Leviticus 19:9–10), the tithe laid up for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless and the widow (Deuteronomy 14:28–29), and the command to open the hand wide to a poor brother, with the LORD’s promise to bless his people for it (Deuteronomy 15:7–11). Amos calls for judgment to run down as waters (Amos 5:24), and Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). He also speaks of the eye: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matthew 6:22).

The passage closes with the opposite of the bountiful eye. “He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want” (verse 16). To oppress, ʻâshaq, is to oppress, defraud, extort or wrong, using power to take what belongs to another. The poor are dal again, the same word as in verse 9, so the two verses set the man who feeds the poor beside the man who squeezes them. In Israel the poor, the widow and the fatherless were open to exactly this from landowners, merchants and officials, through unjust weights, usury and forced labour, and the prophets cried out against it (Amos 2:6–7, Amos 5:11–12).

Both men “shall surely come to want”. The word machçôwr means lack, deficiency or poverty, and “surely” makes the outcome certain. The oppressor grabs at riches and ends with want, for “Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivereth from death” (Proverbs 11:4). The same LORD who made the poor man in verse 2 takes up his cause here. James warned the rich of his day that the wages they kept back from their labourers cried out and were heard in heaven.

“By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life” (verse 4). Humility, ʻănâvâh, comes from a root meaning to be bowed down. It is lowliness and meekness, an honest view of our place before God and others that is ready to be taught and to yield to his will. The fear, yirʼâh, is reverence and awe before the LORD’s holiness and authority, the fear that is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7) and of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). The two belong together: “The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility” (Proverbs 15:33). “Pride goeth before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18), and the words “before honour is humility” come again in Proverbs 18:12.

Three gifts follow. Riches (ʻôsher, the word behind “great riches” in verse 1) come first, then honour, and then life, chay, which in Proverbs means living and flourishing under God’s blessing, set against the ruin that waits for the wicked. Wisdom’s blessings in Proverbs 3 sound the same note, and a psalm says, “O fear the LORD, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him” (Psalm 34:9). Jesus gives the same order of things: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).

Verses 3 and 5 both picture life as a road with dangers along it. “A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished.” The prudent, ʻârûwm, comes from a root meaning shrewd or crafty, and in Proverbs the word is a good one: practical wisdom that sees what is coming. He foresees, râʼâh, the ordinary verb to see, here used of seeing ahead. What he sees is the evil, raʻ, a word that covers both wickedness and calamity. So he hides himself, çâthar, to hide or conceal, and takes cover from the harm. The simple, pᵉthîy, are the naive and inexperienced, easily persuaded and open to every influence. They pass on (ʻâbar), going straight ahead, and they are punished, ʻânash, a verb that means to be fined or made to pay a penalty. The simple person pays the price for walking blind.

Proverbs warns that the simple are ruined by their own turning away, while whoever listens to wisdom dwells safely (Proverbs 1:32–33), and that a wise man fears and departs from evil (Proverbs 14:16). Moses set life and death before Israel and told them to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). The surest hiding place is the one the psalm names, the secret place of the most High (Psalm 91:1). Jesus told his disciples to watch and be ready, because the hour of his coming is hidden from them (Matthew 24:42–44).

“He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail” (verse 8). The picture comes from the field, where every Israelite knew that what is sown comes up at harvest. Iniquity, ʻevel, is wrong or injustice, from a root meaning to distort morally. Its harvest is vanity, ʼâven, a word for nothingness and emptiness and also for trouble and wickedness, from a root that suggests panting or labouring in vain. The man who plants wrong reaps a crop of trouble with nothing of worth in it. Eliphaz says the same: “they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same” (Job 4:8), and Paul gives the rule for every life: “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). The book of Ecclesiastes opens with “Vanity of vanities” (Ecclesiastes 1:2), its lament over life lived apart from God’s wisdom, and it shares the English word with this verse.

“The rod of his anger shall fail.” The rod is shêbeṭ, the same word as the rod of correction in verse 15, here a sceptre or club in the hand of a man who rules in fury. His anger, ʻebrâh, is wrath or rage. That rod shall fail, kâlâh, to come to an end, cease, be finished or consumed. Power used in fury against others runs out. Isaiah shows the LORD using Assyria as the rod of his own anger and then bringing down its proud king (Isaiah 10:5–19), and a psalm promises, “For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous” (Psalm 125:3). This gives hope to those who suffer under harsh power and a warning to those who wield it.

“Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease” (verse 10). The scorner, lûwts, is the scoffer. The verb properly means to make mouths at, to deride, and it can also mean to interpret or speak for another. In Proverbs the scorner mocks wisdom and hates correction, so that rebuking him only earns his hatred (Proverbs 9:7–8). Wherever he stays, quarrels follow. So the verse commands that he be cast out, gârash, to drive out or expel, a verb also used for driving people out of a possession and for divorce.

Three things leave with him. Contention (mâdôwn), the quarrelling and brawling, shall go out, yâtsâʼ, the ordinary word for going out, as though it left by the same door. Strife (dîyn), a word also used for judgment and legal dispute, and reproach (qâlôwn), disgrace and shame, shall cease, shâbath, to stop or rest, the verb from which the Sabbath takes its name. In Israel’s close communities a quarrelsome mocker could tear a family or village apart and bring shame on all of them. When he goes, the quarrelling stops, the shame lifts and the household or community can rest. “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1).

The New Testament gives the church the same wisdom. Paul tells the Corinthians to put away the wicked person from among them (1 Corinthians 5:13), tells the Romans to mark those who cause divisions and avoid them (Romans 16:17–18), and tells Titus to reject a divisive man after a first and second admonition (Titus 3:10–11). Jesus himself set out the steps for dealing with a brother who sins against us, from a private word up to the whole church (Matthew 18:15–17).

“He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the king shall be his friend” (verse 11). To love, ʼâhab, is to have affection for a person, a thing or a way of life, and this man loves pureness, ṭᵉhôwr, moral and spiritual cleanness, in his heart, lêb. From that heart comes the grace of his lips. Grace here is chên, the same word as the loving favour of verse 1, and lips, sâphâh, means lip and so speech or language. His words are kind, truthful and pleasing because they come from a clean heart, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).

His reward is the friendship of the king, melek. A wise king prizes men of integrity and good speech and wants them near him, for a throne is established by righteousness (Proverbs 16:12). In a kingdom the king’s favour meant protection, standing and a place among his counsellors, and the king here also stands for anyone who holds authority. Proverbs elsewhere promises the one who binds mercy and truth about his neck favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man (Proverbs 3:3–4). The psalm says the one with clean hands and a pure heart shall ascend into the hill of the LORD (Psalm 24:3–4), Jesus says the pure in heart shall see God (Matthew 5:8), and Paul asks that our speech be always with grace (Colossians 4:6).

“The eyes of the LORD preserve knowledge, and he overthroweth the words of the transgressor” (verse 12). The eyes, ʻayin, are the same word as the bountiful eye of verse 9. Scripture speaks of God’s eyes to tell us that he sees everything and watches over his world with care and purpose. Those eyes preserve, nâtsar, to guard, protect and maintain, and what they guard is knowledge, daʻath, the knowledge of God and his ways that leads to right living and begins with the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 1:7). God keeps that truth safe, so that it endures and those who seek it can find it.

The transgressor, bâgad, is the treacherous or faithless man. His words, dâbâr, are his speech and with it his counsel, plans and lies, and the LORD overthrows them. The verb çâlaph means to wrench, and so to subvert or overturn. God wrecks the schemes of the faithless, as he “frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad” (Isaiah 44:25). “Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him” (Psalm 33:18), “his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men” (Psalm 11:4), and “the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish” (Psalm 1:6).

“The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets” (verse 13). The slothful, ʻâtsêl, is the sluggard, the man unwilling to work. He says, ʼâmar, the ordinary word for saying, and what he says is an excuse. There is a lion, ʼărîy, without, chûwts, outside his door, and he will be killed in the streets, rᵉchôb, the broad open places of a town where people traded, met and settled disputes at the gate. Lions were real in Israel, and David killed one that came against his father’s flock (1 Samuel 17:34–37). A lion in the middle of town is a far-fetched excuse all the same, and the proverb holds it up so that we laugh at it and then recognise ourselves in it. The sluggard invents a danger to escape his work and calls it caution. Proverbs gives him the same excuse a second time: “The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets” (Proverbs 26:13).

The real danger is the one he stays home with. The field of the slothful grows over with thorns and nettles, and poverty comes upon him like an armed man (Proverbs 24:30–34). Proverbs sends him to the ant to learn (Proverbs 6:6–11), and it says that “the hand of the diligent maketh rich” (Proverbs 10:4) and “shall bear rule” (Proverbs 12:24). Paul’s rule for the church is plain: “that if any would not work, neither should he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

“The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the LORD shall fall therein” (verse 14). The word strange comes from zûwr, to turn aside or be a foreigner, and in Proverbs the strange woman is the adulteress, the woman who draws a man away from his marriage and from the path of righteousness. In Israel adultery was a grave sin against God, against the marriage and against the whole community. The warnings against her run all through Proverbs 1–9, most fully in Proverbs 7, where she lures a simple young man and “Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death” (Proverbs 7:26–27). In Proverbs 9 Wisdom and Folly each call to the passer-by, and their two houses lead to life and to death.

Her weapon is her mouth: flattery, smooth promises and alluring words. That mouth is a deep pit, a trap that is hard to climb out of, and in Scripture the pit often pictures ruin and the grave. A later proverb says, “For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit” (Proverbs 23:27). The Preacher found the woman whose heart is snares and nets more bitter than death (Ecclesiastes 7:26), and Hebrews says that God will judge whoremongers and adulterers (Hebrews 13:4).

The one who falls in is “abhorred of the LORD”. The verb zâʻam properly means to foam at the mouth, and so to be enraged or indignant. The man who falls is the one already under the LORD’s righteous indignation for his persistent rebellion, and God in his justice leaves him to the path he has chosen. He falls, nâphal, into ruin. His fall shows where he already stood with God, while the one who walks with the LORD has his protection. A psalm says to God, “thou hatest all workers of iniquity” (Psalm 5:4–5).

The New Testament shows us Jesus Christ as the one in whom these sayings find their fullest meaning. God gave him “a name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9), the good name of verse 1, and he had his Father’s loving favour, who said at his baptism, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17), and said it again on the mount of transfiguration (Matthew 17:5). He is the humble man of verse 4, who “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant” and was obedient unto death (Philippians 2:5–8), and who always did what pleased his Father (John 8:29).

He is the pure heart with gracious lips of verse 11. He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15), full of grace and truth (John 1:14), and he taught with an authority that astonished the crowds (Matthew 7:28–29), so that the officers sent to arrest him said, “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46). He calls his disciples his friends (John 15:15). He is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24), made unto us wisdom and righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30), and in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3), the knowledge the LORD’s eyes preserve in verse 12. He is the Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1). He exposed the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23), silenced those who tried to trap him in his words (Luke 20:26), and through death destroyed him that had the power of death, the devil (Hebrews 2:14).

He made rich and poor alike, for all things were created by him and for him (Colossians 1:16), and “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). He blessed the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3), broke down the middle wall of partition to make one new man (Ephesians 2:14–16), and makes all who believe one in him, bond and free alike (Galatians 3:28). He gave his own flesh as the living bread for the life of the world (John 6:51), the fullest giving of bread to the poor, and he counts what is done for the least of his brethren as done for him (Matthew 25:31–46). He came to minister and to give his life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45). He rebuked the Pharisees, who loved money (Luke 16:14), and told of the rich fool who laid up treasure for himself and was not rich toward God (Luke 12:16–21).

Where verse 7 speaks of the borrower’s bondage, Christ sets free. Believers once served sin and are made servants of righteousness (Romans 6:18), the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption (Romans 8:21), and “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). We are redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18–19), we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7), we are joint-heirs with him (Romans 8:17), and whoever believes in him has everlasting life (John 3:16).

Verse 8 says the rod of anger shall fail, and on the cross Christ blotted out the handwriting that was against us and spoiled principalities and powers (Colossians 2:14–15). He who knew no sin was made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21), and his kingdom, which is not of this world (John 18:36), is an everlasting dominion (Daniel 7:14). The one who sows to the Spirit reaps life everlasting (Galatians 6:8). The sluggard of verse 13 fears a lion of his own making, while the devil walks about “as a roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8), and Jesus steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51) and laid down his life of himself (John 10:17–18) as the good shepherd (John 10:11). We are his workmanship, created in him unto good works (Ephesians 2:10).

The folly of verse 15, the crooked way of verse 5 and the pit of verse 14 describe us all, for all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and were by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). He was wounded for our transgressions, and the LORD laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:5–6). He is the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), our refuge and strength (Psalm 46:1), and the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). In him believers put off the old man and put on the new (Ephesians 4:22–24), and the Father’s chastening yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:5–11). Through him we have peace with God (Romans 5:1) and his own peace (John 14:27), in a kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans 14:17), where the strife and reproach of verse 10 come to rest.

These sayings come from a God who made the rich and the poor and watches over both. His eyes keep the knowledge that leads to life, and he overturns the words of the faithless. He gives riches, honour and life to the humble who fear him, he blesses the generous eye, and he brings the oppressor to want. He gives parents the work of training their children and the means to correct them, and he is himself the Father who trains and corrects his own.

A good name and his favour lie within reach of rich and poor alike, because they are built from what he gives: humility, reverence, a clean heart, an open hand and an honest tongue. In Christ he has given far more, the Son’s own good name and the Father’s favour, as a gift to all who believe.