Proverbs16chapter 16

Proverbs 16:1-2

The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, opens the chapter's Lord cluster with a claim that reaches behind speech itself: a man plans his own words, but the actual answer that comes out is finally the Lord's to give. All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, the self-assessment every man reaches without help, while the Lord weighs the spirits, the measurement no man can perform on himself. Henry reads the pair as a caution against trusting a clear conscience as if it were the same thing as God's verdict.

Proverbs 16:3-4

Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established names the plan the whole cluster is teaching, a man's own planning handed over rather than trusted alone. The Lord hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day of evil is one of the chapter's hardest lines, and the readings are named rather than settled: some of the bench read it as God's sovereign purpose reaching even into judgment on the wicked, and others read it more narrowly, that the wicked man is reserved for a day of reckoning rather than made wicked by design. Delitzsch treats the Hebrew as bearing the sovereignty reading without turning it into a claim that God authors evil itself.

Proverbs 16:5-7

Every proud heart is an abomination to the Lord, and the warning is total, though hand join in hand meaning no alliance of the proud will escape it. Mercy and truth purge iniquity, and the fear of the Lord makes men depart from evil, two forces the chapter treats as inseparable, since truth without mercy and fear without either would not do the same work. When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him, a promise Gill reads literally in the pattern of Israel's own history, where obedience repeatedly turned hostile neighbours quiet.

Proverbs 16:8-9

Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right closes the Lord cluster the way it opened, measuring a life by its standing with God rather than by its income. A man's heart devises his way, and the Lord directs his steps: the planning stays the man's own work, but the actual walking belongs finally to a will larger than his. Bridges reads the whole nine-verse cluster as one argument, that human planning and divine direction are not rivals but partners, with the Lord always holding the larger share.

Proverbs 16:10-12

A divine sentence is in the lips of the king, and his mouth does not transgress in judgment, a high claim for any human ruler, and the older writers read it as describing what a king in Israel was meant to be under God's law rather than a guarantee attached to every throne. A just weight and balance belong to the Lord himself, every weight in the merchant's bag counted as his handiwork, tying honest commerce directly to the same standard as royal judgment. It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness, for a throne is established by righteousness and not by force alone.

Proverbs 16:13-15

Righteous lips are the delight of kings, and they love the man who speaks what is right, a courtier's proverb that still measures royal favour by honesty rather than flattery. The wrath of a king is compared to messengers of death, sudden and final, and a wise man's business is learning to pacify it before it arrives rather than after. The light of the king's countenance is life, and his favour like a cloud of the latter rain, the same rain the histories tie to a good harvest, so royal favour is pictured as something that actually feeds the household under it.

Proverbs 16:16-17

How much better is it to get wisdom than gold, and understanding rather to be chosen than silver, restates the comparison chapter 8 already made at length, now in the sentence literature's shorter form. The highway of the upright departs from evil, a road rather than a single choice, and the man who keeps to it preserves his own soul simply by staying on it. Gill reads the verse as proof that holiness is finally self-protective, a guarded life rather than a sacrificed one.

Proverbs 16:18-19

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall, one of the book's most quoted lines, and the text itself is more exact than the common paraphrase: pride ends in destruction, and the haughty spirit specifically ends in a fall, two distinct outcomes for two distinct forms of the same sin. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly than to divide the spoil with the proud follows immediately, ranking a humble man's company above a proud man's winnings even when the proud man has actually won. Bridges reads the pairing as the chapter's clearest single warning, pride measured by what it costs rather than by how it feels while it lasts.

Proverbs 16:20-21

He that handleth a matter wisely shall find good, and whoso trusteth in the Lord is called happy, wisdom and trust named together as if the second explains the first. The wise in heart shall be called prudent, a reputation earned rather than claimed, and the sweetness of the lips increases learning, since a pleasant teacher keeps students a harsh one would lose. Henry reads both verses as proof that wisdom is as much a manner as a body of knowledge.

Proverbs 16:22-24

Understanding is a wellspring of life to the man who has it, while the instruction fools offer is nothing but folly, the same water and dryness imagery the book uses elsewhere for wisdom and its absence. The heart of the wise teaches his own mouth, training his speech from the inside before a single word is spoken, and adds learning to his lips over time rather than all at once. Pleasant words close the group as honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones, the chapter's recurring claim that a good word does a real, physical good to the body that hears it.

Proverbs 16:25

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death repeats 14:12 word for word, the book's own doubling of its most urgent warning against a feeling of rightness that is not the same thing as the fear of the Lord. Delitzsch notes that the sentence literature allows such repeats deliberately, since a collection meant to be memorized gains rather than loses by returning to its hardest lessons more than once. The warning sits here among the wisdom-of-speech proverbs as a reminder that eloquence and self-confidence are no substitute for a way actually tested against God's own standard.

Proverbs 16:26-27

He that laboureth laboureth for himself, since his own hunger, his own mouth, is what drives him to work in the first place, a plain observation about the honest motive behind ordinary labour. The ungodly man works from the same drive turned wrong, digging up evil the way a labourer digs a field, and carrying in his lips a fire that burns whoever stands near it. Gill reads the pairing as proof that industry itself is morally neutral, valuable or destructive only by what it is aimed at.

Proverbs 16:28-30

A froward man sows strife on purpose, and a whisperer separates chief friends, the same slow damage the talebearer does elsewhere in the book done here to whole relationships rather than single quarrels. A violent man entices his neighbour and leads him into a way that is not good, corruption pictured as an invitation rather than a command. He shutteth his eyes to devise froward things, and moving his lips brings evil to pass, small physical gestures the older writers read as the outward tells of a mind already working out its scheme.

Proverbs 16:31

The hoary head is a crown of glory, but the verse qualifies its own praise at once: if it be found in the way of righteousness. Age by itself earns nothing in the book's own accounting; the crown belongs to a long obedience, not merely to a long life. Henry reads the verse as a correction to any culture, ancient or modern, that honours old age automatically rather than honouring the righteousness old age had the chance to practice longest.

Proverbs 16:32

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that rules his own spirit than he that takes a city, ranking an internal victory above the largest external one the ancient world could imagine. Bridges reads the comparison as deliberate hyperbole in the city-taker's favour, since even a conqueror's achievement is measured smaller than the self-control an ordinary man can practice without an army. The verse gives the chapter its clearest statement that the real battlefield is the ruler's own spirit before it is ever anyone else's territory.

Proverbs 16:33

The lot is cast into the lap: The lot is cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord closes the chapter on the same claim that opened it, a man's own action, here the throw of a lot rather than a word or a plan, still finally resting in God's hand. This is the providence text the book of Esther enacts in full without ever naming God directly, Haman's own lot, the pur, falling on a day that became Israel's deliverance rather than its ruin. Gill reads the verse as the chapter's summary line, since every cluster before it, the Lord in the heart, the Lord at the throne, the Lord over pride and humility, has been building toward the same conclusion stated here as flatly as it can be stated.