CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 12:5. Thoughts, or “purposes.” Right, “judgment,” “justice.”
Proverbs 12:7. Wordsworth here reads, “When the wicked turn themselves,” etc., i.e., on any reverse of their fortunes, however slight, they perish.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPHS— Proverbs 12:5-8
THOUGHTS AND WORDS AND THEIR RESULT
I. The thoughts of the righteous or godly man are right.
1. Because he has the best material out of which to build his thoughts. The kind of building which is reared will depend mainly upon the quarry from which the stones are hewn. The man of God gets the material of his thoughts from the revealed word of God. He obeys the Divine command.—“This book of the law shall not depart out thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate thereon day and night” (Joshua 1:8).
2. Because his thinking is under the rule of law. He does not allow his mind to dwell upon every suggestion that comes into it, he forbids certain things to enter there, or if they enter in an unguarded moment, he will not give them a dwelling place. He does not give unqualified assent to the boast that “thought is free.” The righteous man does not aspire to be a “free-thinker,” if he did he could not be a good thinker. He rules his thoughts accordiag to the legislation of Christ (Matthew 5:28; Matthew 15:18), and endeavours to bring every thought into obedience to Him (2 Corinthians 10:5).
II. The speech of the righteous. A man’s words are never worse than his thoughts. In a good man they are the outcome of his thoughts. As the child is the undeveloped man, and the seed the undeveloped tree, so thought is the seed of speech. If the child’s constitution is good and the seed is good, the man and the tree will be healthy and vigorous. If the thought is healthy and wise the speech will be so likewise, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).
III. The thoughts of the wicked. They are such as spring spontaneously from the human heart, which is, according to the estimate of One who knows, “deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9). In such a heart counsels or thoughts of deceit must be generated. His own life-work will be a deceit (chap. Proverbs 11:18), and he will deceive others. The verse evidently refers to thoughts which purpose harm to other people. When a man’s thoughts are not in subjection to the law of God, they have a tendency to go from bad to worse. The ungodly man, either directly or indirectly, injures others as well as himself.
IV. The words of the wicked. The ungodly are here represented, as in chap. Proverbs 11:21, as combining to injure the godly (see Homiletics on that verse). Their words are the outcome of their evil and malicious thoughts. Most ungodly men try to lessen the influence of the good by depreciating their character when they do not dare to attack their property and their lives. This lying in wait for blood may cover all schemes to bring about the downfall of the good. The two characters now stand before us. Let us look at what is in store for each. I. For the righteous.
1. Deliverance from the machinations of the wicked. This is effected by means of the godly man’s own words. He is able to refute what his enemies bring against him. This proverb cannot of course be taken to assert that the righteous are always delivered from death at the hands of their persecutors. They are delivered as Christ was delivered from the counsels of deceit, and from the bloody plans of the Scribes and Pharisees. The words here used exactly describe their character, and the deliverance of the righteous is such a deliverance as our Lord wrought for Himself by the words of truth and wisdom with which He silenced them. Take the instance of the tribute-money as recorded by Matthew (chap. Proverbs 22:15). “Then went the Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle Him in His talk. And they sent out unto Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest Thou for any man; for thou regardest not the person of men. Tell us, therefore, What thinkest Thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought Him a penny. And He saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto Him, Cæsar’s. Then saith He unto them, Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s. When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.” Two other instances of Christ’s delivering Himself by His “mouth” are given in the same chapter. And many of His followers have in like manner defeated the plans of their enemies.
2. The establishment of his family. His thoughts and words bless his own house—they are the means of reproducing other characters whose thoughts and words are like his own. This of itself is a good reason why his house should stand. Each member of it thus becomes a centre of influence for good, and in this way the world is preserved from moral corruption and ruin. And it is a law of God’s kingdom that the godliness of the head of a family or race should bring a blessing upon his posterity. God defended the people of Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah for “His servant David’s sake” (Isaiah 37:35). He blessed Isaac for “my servant Abraham’s sake” (Genesis 26:24). And the same law is at work in New Testament times, “The promise is unto you and to your children” (Acts 2:39).
3. General commendation. The wise and the righteous are synonymous in the book of Proverbs, the wisdom of the 8th verse is, doubtless, moral wisdom. Paul calls his Corinthian converts, whom he had begotten by his holy thoughts and wise words, his “letters of commendation” (2 Corinthians 3:1-3). Every godly man has some such commendatory epistles in the living souls whom his life and words have blessed. Men can but acknowledge that he is a blessing to his fellow-creatures while he lives, and after he has left the world he is praised by, and because of, those whom he turned to righteousness” (Daniel 12:3). But for the wicked there must be—
1. Overthrow. They entered the lists against a power much stronger than their own, and must therefore come to ruin. The stubble of the field can contend for a time against the fire, but the latter grows stronger the longer it burns, and the stubble is less and less able to resist its power, until presently there is nothing left but a few ashes which are soon scattered by the winds, and the place that once knew them knows them no more, “For behold the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch” (Malachi 4:1).
4. General contempt. The wicked or “perverse of heart” will not be able to respect himself, how then can he expect others to hold him in honour? And in the day of his overthrow the contempt or indifference with which both he and his fate will be regarded will not come from those whom he has striven to injure, but from those who are like himself. Those who have already met with their overthrow will be those who will meet him with the taunt, “Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?” (Isaiah 14:10). And those whose time of judgment is yet in the future will not stoop to pity or succour him.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 12:5. That thoughts are free, is his lesson, by whom we are made slaves unto sin. For if the thoughts be corrupted, the affections will soon be polluted, and then the actions are easily perverted. If the flies of Egypt get into our eyes, the frogs of Egypt will soon get into our chambers, the chambers of our hearts, and then the caterpillars of Egypt will soon destroy our fruits, the actions of our lives. The counsels of the wicked are deceit—they deceive God of His honour, their neighbour of his right, themselves of their salvation.—Jermin.
The stress lies upon the words, “thoughts” or “purposes,” and “counsels.” Habits of good and evil reach beyond the region of outward act to that of impulse and volition.—Plumptre.
To the righteous are ascribed simple and clear thoughts, to the godless, prudently thought through schemes and measures, but on that very account not simple, because of their tendency. Delitzsch.
If good thoughts look into a wicked heart, they stay not there, as those that like not their lodging; the flashes of lightnings may be discerned into the darkest prisons. The light that shines into a holy heart is constant, like that of the sun, which keeps due times, and varies not the course for any of these sublunary occasions.—Trapp.
At the first creation man was made to excel brute beasts more by the reason and gifts of the soul than by the fashion and shape of the body, so at the second, a Christian is made to excel sinful men more by the holiness and working of the soul than by those of the body.—Dod.
The mere thoughts—the unpremeditated resolves of a righteous man—are right; the deliberate counsels, the very deliberations of the wicked, are deceit.—Burgon.
Many indeed are the deviations of the righteous. But there is an overcoming law within that, in despite of all opposition, fixes his thoughts with delight on God and His law (Psalms 139:17-18; Romans 7:15; Romans 7:23), and gives to them a single bias for His service. Widely different are the thoughts of the wicked, ripening into counsels fraught with deceit. Such were those of Joseph’s brethren to deceive their father; of Jeroboam, under a feigned consideration of the people; of Daniel’s enemies, under pretence of honouring the king; of Herod, under the profession of worshipping the infant Saviour.—Bridges.
This verse has been rendered, “The policy of the just is honesty; the wisdom of the wicked is cunning.” The righteous man deals in rectitude, and from his actions you know his thoughts. It is not so with “the wicked.” He thinks one way and acts another. His words and deeds are not the fair index of his thoughts.—Wardlaw.
“The plans of the righteous are a judgment.” This word, which is very common in the Bible, means a judicial decision. The “judgment” of the wicked is a verdict of the Almighty consigning them to hell. The “judgment” of the righteous, by what Christ has wrought out, is a verdict of eternal reward.… The “plans of the righteous,” however disastrous they may seem, “are a judgment.” And, as the “judgment” of the righteous is in his favour, his plans, however bad, are shaped in him for his good. Whatsoever storms they may lead to, they are from a most prosperous verdict, and have been allowed to supervene, for his highest, and well-graduated good. Mark now the climax (as in ch. Proverbs 14:11). It says, the plans of the righteous, leaving us to suppose they might be very wretched. But it says “the helmsmanship (counsels, see on chap. Proverbs 11:14) of the wicked,” leaving us to suppose they are very shrewd. The keenest calculations of the wicked, where a cool eye is at the helm, and where instead of marrying a foolish wife (Proverbs 12:4), he has built grandly for the world; still, as a judgment, I mean by that, as the whole verdict in his case, his very helmsmanships are a deceit.
(1) His own wisdom cheats him in ordering his life; and
(2) God Himself, as a part of His award, takes care that he be deceived as to his total well-being.—Miller.
Proverbs 12:6. The law of parallelism leaves it open to us to refer the pronoun at the end of the verse to the righteous themselves, or to those, the unwary and innocent, for whom the words of the wicked lie in wait.—Plumptre.
The fiercer ebullitions of humanity may, indeed, be softened down and restrained. But the principle remains the same. The fiery elements only lie in slumbering cover, and often break out, wasting the very face of society.—Bridges.
The words. Speech is the great instrument of man. Talking is his trade. Wall Street and Lombard Street make their fortunes by the tongue. The “words of the wicked” are, therefore, their highest activities, and our proverb declares that these high acts are “a lying in wait for blood.” We would not deny that this may include the blood of others; but in the light of the last verse the grand victim is themselves (chap. Proverbs 1:18). Each order on change is for a man’s last discomfiture.—Miller.
Though nature hath denied man the weapons of his teeth, yet wickedness giveth to some such words as are more bloody than the teeth of the most bloody beasts. The false witness will frame his tale so cunningly as if he intended nothing but a clearing of the truth, whereas he seeketh nothing but the shedding of blood. The corrupt judge will couch his words so closely, as if he meant nothing but to have justice executed, whereas they are nothing but ambushments to surprise innocent blood. But there are words which issue from the mouth of the upright, as making a sally out of some adjoining fort, whereby the prey is rescued, the pillagers are defeated, the innocent is delivered, the upright as victorious is crowned with the diadem of his judgment as in Job it is called (ch. Proverbs 29:14); and which St. Gregory saith is rightly called a diadem, because by the glory of an excellent work it leadeth to the crown of a glorious reward. Now such were the words of Job’s mouth, who brake the jaws of the wicked and plucked the spoil out of his teeth, being eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and a father to the poor.—Jermin.
The prayers of God’s people ascend up to God’s presence for His help, and those mouths prevail mightily that seek for redress of wrong at His hands. Herod thought it would be too late for all the friends which Peter had to minister help to him when he had clapped him in prison. But he remembered not how swift the godly be to prayer and how soon a prayer can come to God.—Dod.
Proverbs 12:7. The persons of the wicked are overthrown and are not, the house of the righteous (the very roof that sheltered him) shall stand.—Burgon.
He that is strong may be overthrown and may rise again, he that riseth not to what he was may rise in part to something, he that riseth not at all, may lie where he has fallen; but in the overthrow of the wicked all hope is gone of anything, for they themselves are nothing. They were not in goodness, they are not by their wickedness. They are not to be recovered from their overthrow, because they are not changed to repentance by their overthrow. On the other side, not only the righteous shall stand, their family, their posterity shall stand, for God shall stand by them, and then no fear of falling can be unto them.—Jermin.
When a change of the estate of the ungodly is made from prosperity unto adversity, their utter destruction is commonly wrought, for their house being built upon the sand, the tempests and the winds arise and quite overthrow it. The whole manner of the overthrow is described in Job 18:15.—Muffet.
The righteous shall “have a place in the Lord’s house,” immovable here (Isaiah 56:4-5), and in eternity (Revelation 3:12).—Bridges.
Solomon had a signal exemplification of this in the case of Saul and his father David. Possibly this instance might be in his eye at the time.—Wardlaw.
Eventually there must be overthrow, even if it be no overthrow but death. When the wicked do fall, there is positively nothing of them left. While in the deepest disasters of the righteous, nothing is not left. “His house,” and by that is meant every possible real interest (1 Samuel 2:35) shall stand for ever.—Miller.
Proverbs 12:8. Sometimes, and very often, the wicked shall commend him, commonly the righteous, and always the Lord Himself, but most of all at the last day, before all men and angels. They that are not void of uprightness shall not be destitute of praise and honour. Though some be blind that they cannot discern their understanding and graces, yet others have their eyesight and behold them. Though some be dumb and will not speak of their virtues, yet others have their lips open to commend them.—Dod.
And all wisdom consists in this, that a man rightly know and worship God. Apollonius, Archimedes, and Aristotle were wise in their generations, and so accounted, but by whom? Not by St. Paul, he hath another opinion of them (Romans 1:22). Not by our Saviour (Matthew 11:25).—Trapp.
According—“in exact proportion;” such is the meaning of the Hebrew. A man is more applauded for good sense than perhaps anything else. Wisdom—“shrewdness;” that attribute that leads to success. Therefore it sometimes means success (2 Kings 18:7). Successful shrewdness is a very positive sort. Such is the shrewdness of the righteous man (Proverbs 12:7). Perverse heart—“crooked sense,” literally heart; though heart contains more of sense (νους) than we ascribe to it. If a man whose mind works crookedly every time becomes an object of contempt, why ought not the wicked to become so, whose very helmsmanships are a deceit? (Proverbs 12:5).—Miller.
How thrilling will be the commendation of wisdom before the assembled universe! (Luke 12:42-44). Who will not then acknowledge the wise choice of an earthly cross with a heavenly crown?—Bridges.
This is capable of two interpretations. It may refer to commendation by men, or to commendation by God. In the one case it may mean mere secular discretions, in the other it must mean religious principle, according to the invariable testimony that “the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom.” This is not the wisdom that secures the eulogy of men; but it will ever secure that of the Infinitely Wise, the Infinitely Good. And, indeed, the two things may be united. A man who fears God will always be a faithful counsellor, and if at the same time he have sound discretion in regard to the affairs of life, this will form the perfection of character, and there will be commendation both from men and God.… In the pride of your hearts, you may affect to hold very cheap the contempt of men; though even that is often more pretension than reality, disappointment rankling at the heart, while scorn is curling the lip. But what must it be to be “lightly esteemed” at last, to be “despised” by that God who has in his hands the destinies of the universe!—Wardlaw.