Proverbs 6:12

6:12-19 If the slothful are to be condemned, who do nothing, much more those that do all the ill they can. Observe how such a man is described. He says and does every thing artfully, and with design. His ruin shall come without warning, and without relief. Here is a list of things hateful to God. Those sins are in a special manner provoking to God, which are hurtful to the comfort of human life. These things which God hates, we must hate in ourselves; it is nothing to hate them in others. Let us shun all such practices, and watch and pray against them; and avoid, with marked disapproval, all who are guilty of them, whatever may be their rank.

Proverbs 6:12-15 . A naughty person — Hebrew, a man of Belial, a wicked man, whose continual practice it is, in one way or other, to work wickedness; walketh with a froward mouth — Makes it his business, by lies; or flatteries, or slanders, or perjuries, to maintain himself in his idle courses. And if the slothful are to be condemned that do nothing, much more those that act wickedly, and contrive to do all the ill they can. He winketh with his eyes, &c. — He vents his wickedness, as by his speech, so also by his gestures, by which he secretly intimates what he is ashamed or afraid to express openly to his accomplices, his intentions or desires of doing some evil to some one; he teacheth with his fingers — Having declared his designs by the motion of his eyes, or feet, he points out the particular person by his fingers. Frowardness is in his heart — Perverse or wicked thoughts and desires. He soweth discord — Either out of malice against others, or out of a base design of improving it to his own advantage. Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly — And prove his utter ruin; suddenly shall he be broken — When he fancies he has conducted his matters so craftily that nobody discerns his villany, he shall, on a sudden, be looked upon as the pest of mankind, and, like a vessel broken in small pieces, shall be incurably undone.

12 . a naughty person ] Lit. a man of Belial . The Heb. word Belial means, “of no profit,” “worthless,” and, according to the Heb. idiom, a man of, or a son of ( Deuteronomy 13:13 ) Belial, is an unprofitable or worthless person. Here, however, the word “Belial” is in apposition with “man,” “a man (who is) worthless, a good-for-nothing fellow.” The word appears to have been personified by the later Jews, and is used in the form Belial, or Beliar, to denote Satan ( 2 Corinthians 6:15 , where see note in this Series). walketh ] The R.V., following the Heb. pointing, is more abrupt and forcible: A worthless person, a man of iniquity; He walketh with a froward mouth. Thirteenth Address. Chap. 6. Proverbs 6:12-19 . The Worthless Person This short section might seem at first sight to break itself into two ( Proverbs 6:12-19 ). But the note of character, “he soweth discord,” repeated in Proverbs 6:19 from Proverbs 6:14 , helps to identify the worthless person as being the subject throughout, and a closer examination exhibits the connection. Would you recognise the worthless man? Here is his description, Proverbs 6:12-14 . Would you understand his end? Here is his destiny, Proverbs 6:15 . Would you know what God, the Judge of all, sees in him to hate and punish? Here are the six, yea seven things that undo him, Proverbs 6:16-19 . The connection is well worked out by Mr Horton, The Book of Proverbs , pp. 84–91.

A naughty person - literally, "a man of Belial," i. e., a worthless man (see the Deuteronomy 13:13 note). This is the portrait of the man who is not to be trusted, whose look and gestures warn against him all who can observe. His speech is tortuous and crafty; his wink tells the accomplice that the victim is already snared; his gestures with foot and hand are half in deceit, and half in mockery.

Verses 12-19. - 11. Eleventh admonitory discourse. Warning against mischievousness as a thing hateful to God. The connection of this with the preceding discourse is not at first sight very clear, but it may be found in the fact, attested only too unhappily by experience, that sloth leads those who indulge in it to such vices as are next enumerated. The sluggard may develop into a treacherous and deceitful man, and even if such should not happen, the characteristics of the two are nearly allied, and their end is much the same. St. Paul, in his First Epistle to Timothy, observes this same combination of character, and remarks that idlers are "tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not" (see 1 Timothy 6:13 ). The intention of the discourse is obviously to dissuade all, and especially the young, from the vices, and to preserve them from the ruin, of those men of whom "the naughty person and wicked man" is the type. Verse 12. - A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth. The teacher begins by stating in general terms the nature and character of the man whom he now holds up as a warning to others, and then proceeds to point out the various features in his conduct and behaviour by which he may be known. In concise terms he is described as "a naughty person, a wicked man." This is pre-eminently his character, and the first feature in it is that his life is one of wilful and injurious misreprescntation of the truth.

A naughty person, a wicked man. In apposition and mutually explanatory. The grammatical arrangement of the sentences which follow, each of which is introduced by a participle, and is thus coordinate to the ethers, as well as the parallel terms, "person" ( adam ) and "man" ( ish ), determine this apposition. So Bertheau and Delitzsch. Others (as Zockler, Noyes, Kamph), however, connect the second expression with the series of characteristics which follow, and render, "A worthless person is a deceiver, who," etc., but wrongly. A naughty person (Hebrew, adam b'liyyaal ); literally, a man of Belial ; Vulgate, homo apostata ; LXX., ἀνὴρ ἄφρων . The word "Belial" is derived from b'li , "without," and yaal , "profit" ( i.e. "without profit"), or from b'li and ol , "yoke" ( i.e. "without yoke"), and strictly signifies either a worthless or a lawless person. The latter derivation is, however, rejected by Gesenius and others. Its abstract signification is worthlessness, uselessness; its concrete or adjectival, worthless. The word "naughty" (Anglo-Saxon, naht, ne aht , "not anything," equivalent to "nothing"), in the sense of good-for-nothing, ne'er-do-well, adopted in the Authorized Version, exactly reproduces its strict etymological meaning. The word, however, always carries with it the idea of moral turpitude.