Proverbs 6:16

The list opens with God’s own name. “The LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, the personal, covenant name of the God of Israel. It is tied to the Hebrew verb “to be” and speaks of the eternal, self-existent God who makes himself known and binds himself to his people. So the verdict on these seven things comes from the God who made the covenant and keeps it, the final authority over how his people live.

“Hate” translates sânêʼ, a strong, personal aversion, the word for active enmity. In God it is his settled, righteous opposition to whatever destroys truth, justice and life, and it belongs together with his love. Because he loves righteousness and truth, he opposes unrighteousness and falsehood by his very nature, and his hatred is always just and free of malice. Proverbs grounds its moral teaching here, in who God is, and his people learn to love what he loves and hate what he hates, for “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil” (Proverbs 8:13).

The second line calls the seven things “an abomination unto him”. The word tôwʻêbah means something utterly wrong and detestable, and it can also mean an idol. The law uses it for practices such as idolatry, child sacrifice and sexual perversion, and Deuteronomy 18:9–12 gathers a whole list of abominable practices. Here the word covers pride, lies, violence, scheming, perjury and quarrel-making, which shows how seriously God takes the sins of everyday life. The words “unto him” make it personal. These things offend God himself, because they contradict who he is.

“A proud look” is literally high eyes. The verb rûwm means to be high, to rise or to raise, and it stands with ʻayin, the eye. It pictures the haughty gaze of someone who looks down on others, the outward sign of a heart that exalts itself. Pride carries contempt for others and a self-sufficiency that refuses to depend on God.

Pride stands first because so many other sins grow from it. It leads to disregard for God’s commands, to contempt for other people, and to a refusal to admit our need of grace, and Proverbs warns where it ends: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). James gives God’s answer to it: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6). Pride brought down Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12–15, and many believers hold that the passage describes the fall of Satan as well. Since a look comes from the heart behind it, the first item on the list already shows that God weighs our attitudes as well as our actions.

Second comes the tongue. “Lying” is sheqer, falsehood, a lie, a sham, and “tongue” is lâshôwn, the ordinary word for the tongue, which is also used for a language. A lying tongue covers outright lies, misrepresentation and slander, every use of speech to mislead or to harm. Such speech wears away trust between people, corrupts justice and twists the truth, and truth belongs to the character of God, “that cannot lie” (Titus 1:2). Proverbs says it again later: “Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight” (Proverbs 12:22).

The list comes back to lying in verse 19, where the same word sheqer is the “false” of the false witness. So two of the seven are sins of untruth.

The third is murder. “Shed” is shâphak, to pour out, spill or shed, “blood” is dâm, and “innocent” is nâqîy, innocent, clean, guiltless. The hands stand for the deed itself, the taking of a life, and “innocent” names a blameless victim, which makes the killing an act of complete injustice. In Israel the shedding of innocent blood was a capital offence, an affront to the order God had set.

Human life is precious to God because man bears his image: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Genesis 9:6). God is the giver and sustainer of life, and he is perfectly just, so the killing of the innocent offends both his work as Creator and his righteousness. The same regard for life sets God against injustice and oppression that treat those made in his image as worthless.

Verse 18 follows evil from its beginning to its doing. The heart, lêb, is the inner person, the seat of the mind, the will and moral choice, where thoughts and intentions begin. The verb “deviseth”, chârash, means to engrave or to plough, and also to fabricate, and used figuratively it means to devise something bad. “Wicked imaginations” are evil plans and designs. So the sin here starts as something worked out on purpose inside a person, before anyone sees it.

The feet then carry the plan out. “Feet” is regel, the foot, “swift” is mâhar, to hurry, and “running” is rûwts. The verb for hurrying is used of good haste and bad, and here the context makes it bad, because the feet run “to mischief”. That word is raʻ, evil in the widest sense, covering harm, calamity and wickedness alike. These are people who hurry toward harm eagerly and of their own accord. Paul uses the same picture of sinners: “Their feet are swift to shed blood” (Romans 3:15). The righteous walk another way: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way” (Psalm 37:23).

Heart and feet together take in the whole person, from the first thought to the finished deed. Jesus taught that evil thoughts, and the evil deeds that follow them, come out of the heart (Matthew 15:19), and Jeremiah calls the heart deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9). So Proverbs urges, “Keep thy heart with all diligence” (Proverbs 4:23). God judges hidden intentions along with outward deeds, and it is the pure in heart whom Jesus calls blessed (Matthew 5:8).

The last two are people. “A false witness that speaketh lies” brings lying into the courtroom. “False” is sheqer, the word of the lying tongue in verse 17, “speaketh” is pûwach, and “lies” is kâzâb. Israel’s courts leaned on the testimony of witnesses, so a false witness could see an innocent man condemned or a guilty one set free. That is why the commandment says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” (Exodus 20:16), and the law also forbids going about spreading slander among the people (Leviticus 19:16). The same sin is at work in gossip and slander, wherever a lie is told to harm someone.

“And he that soweth discord among brethren” is the seventh. “Soweth” translates shâlach, a verb meaning to send or to stretch out, so this man sends strife out among his brothers, and the KJV’s “soweth” gives the picture of seed scattered to come up later as conflict. “Discord” is mᵉdân, strife, contention, a quarrel. “Brethren” is the plural of ʼâch, brother, and here it takes in fellow Israelites, the whole covenant people, who shared one identity under God and owed one another care. Sowing discord among them is sabotage from within, breaking the trust and peace that a people under God depends on.

God’s delight is the opposite: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). Paul tells the church to “mark them which cause divisions” (Romans 16:17), and James says that where envy and strife are, disorder follows (James 3:16).

Standing last, the false witness and the sower of discord give the list its weight. Both betray truth and community, striking at justice and at the unity of God’s people. The same sins travel quickly today through rumours, slander and divisive talk online, and Jesus says that men will give account of every idle word in the day of judgment (Matthew 12:36–37).

Jesus came to fulfil the law (Matthew 5:17), and in his life the things God loves stand in full view, truth, humility, justice and compassion, while he set himself against hypocrisy, pride, oppression and falsehood. When he drove the money changers out of the temple (John 2:13–17), his anger showed God’s hatred of the corruption of holy things.

Set beside this list, he is its opposite at every point. Against the proud look stands his humility, for he emptied himself, took the form of a servant and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5–8). Against the lying tongue stands the one who said “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), “who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). His heart devised only the Father’s will. Against hands that shed innocent blood stands “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29), the truly innocent one, who gave his own blood willingly as the atoning sacrifice, for “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). False witnesses rose against him at his trial (Matthew 26:59–61), and he bore their lies for our salvation. Against the sower of discord stands the one who is our peace, who reconciles us to God and to one another through the cross and breaks down the wall of hostility (Ephesians 2:14–16). He prayed that his followers would be one (John 17:20–23), and he said, “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9).

He also changes the people who did these things. God promised, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26), and that is the answer to a heart that devises wickedness. By his Spirit the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk after the Spirit (Romans 8:4), and feet that were swift to mischief become quick to the good works God prepared for his people to walk in (Ephesians 2:10).

Every item on this list has its opposite, and the opposites show us what God delights in: lowly eyes, a truthful tongue, hands that protect life, a heart that plans good, feet that hurry to do right, honest testimony, and peace among brothers. Proverbs itself says that those who deal truly are his delight. The God who hates these seven things is the same God whose Son walked the whole road the other way, and who gives his people a new heart and his Spirit. So the list that exposes us also shows us who God is, holy in what he hates and generous in what he gives.