Set to dark modeSet to dark modeProverbs 6 Commentary
Please choose a passage
Using a lender-borrower analogy, Solomon warns of the danger of forfeiting our stewardship to others and provides a way out of the danger.
Solomon warns against laziness and tries to encourage the reader toward action by showing the inherent dangers of apathy.
Solomon illustrates the characteristics of a wicked person and the result.
The practical ramifications of wickedness run counter to God, His design for the world, and what is best for each human life.
The commands of God and the teachings of those who follow Him illuminate our path. They lead to discernment, peace, and fellowship.
Flirting with temptation is dangerous. Sin has consequences that cannot be avoided. Submitting to wickedness interrupts a productive life.
Proverbs 6:30-35 explains how the repercussions of betrayal are severe.
In the sixth chapter of Proverbs, Solomon uses a handful of analogies to encourage his audience to choose the path of wisdom over the path of wickedness. The former leads to life and the latter to death. This is a basic theme of scripture. Humans have been granted stewardship of their choices, the ability to make an impact by the actions they choose to take. One of the fundamental choices we make on an ongoing basis is binary: life or death.
This is the basic daily choice God gave Adam in Genesis 2:17. It is the daily decision God placed in His covenant/treaty with Israel (Deuteronomy 30:19). It is the opportunity New Testament believers are invited into in their walk, choosing daily whether to walk in the Spirit (which leads to life) rather than the flesh (which leads to death).
Proverbs 6 is centered around how holistically the path we choose each day affects us. Choices of wisdom and wickedness each come with significant consequences.
Solomon starts with a lender-borrower analogy to talk about how wickedness leads us to forfeit our choices and opportunities. He talks about fleeing the traps of wickedness like a gazelle escaping a hunter or a bird escaping the snare. Then, he uses the example of the ant to talk about diligence and self-governance. All of these illustrations are about the efficacy of human agency, the part we have to play. Our opportunity to make daily choices.
We get to choose our path each moment. We have been assigned responsibility to steward our choices. Wisdom is the path to stewarding well and wickedness is the path to avoiding, forfeiting, and perverting those opportunities.
The path we choose affects us. Wisdom is living in alignment with God and His created order. Wickedness is an abomination, a life of wasted opportunity, dysfunction, and separation (death).
The temptation to choose wickedness seems sweet in the short term. But its long-term effects are ruin. It is the path of separation (death), full of empty promises. Solomon warns to avoid these mirages, to keep distant from them, and to be alert.
Like a good parent, God wants the best for us. He watches over us, guides us, and cares for us. But He does not force us. He allows us the freedom to choose that which He has entrusted us to steward. We lose our choices only by choosing to forfeit them to another agent. We align ourselves with God and His glory by having the courage to choose the path of wisdom.
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