Proverbs20chapter 20

Proverbs 20:1-2

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging opens the chapter with the first of two things that can master a man's judgment, drink and royal anger. The deceived drinker is called not wise rather than wicked, folly rather than crime, and the king's anger pictured as a roaring lion carries the same warning from the other direction: provoking it is called sinning against one's own soul. Both proverbs make the point from opposite occasions, appetite and authority, each able to unseat a man's reason if he lets it.

Proverbs 20:3-5

It is an honour for a man to cease from strife sets the wise response to conflict against the fool who will be meddling in one regardless. The sluggard who will not plow by reason of the cold finds a pretext in the weather and then begs at harvest, his own idleness dressed up as prudence. Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water closes the group with a different kind of restraint, the quiet, unhurried wisdom that only a man of understanding knows how to draw out.

Proverbs 20:6-9

Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness sets up the chapter's hardest question, a faithful man who can find left as a search nearly no one answers. The just man walking in his integrity and blessing his children, and the king on the throne of judgment scattering evil with his eyes, both describe a righteousness the next verse will not let anyone claim for himself. Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin, is the chapter's deepest line, and the bench reads it beside 1 John 1:8, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, no self-examination however honest producing a clean bill before God.

Proverbs 20:10-12

Divers weights, and divers measures opens the chapter's commerce theme with the market scale, called an abomination here and again at verse 23, framing the material between under the same standard. Even a child is known by his doings carries that standard from the marketplace into character, conduct legible from an early age. The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them closes the cluster with the reason the standard holds: the one who made the organs of perception is not fooled by what they report.

Proverbs 20:13-15

Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty continues the chapter's economics with a warning against wasted hours, open eyes answered with bread rather than want. The buyer's complaint, it is naught, it is naught, is market theater caught mid-performance, the same man praising his bargain once he is out of earshot. Against gold and a multitude of rubies the chapter sets the lips of knowledge as the truly precious jewel, valuing speech that instructs above wealth that only buys.

Proverbs 20:16-19

Take his garment that is surety for a stranger repeats the book's standing warning against pledging for someone not well known, harsher here for a pledge given for a strange woman, a debt Gill reads as one no honest court will excuse. Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel matches dishonest gain's taste to its true weight, sweet going down and gravel coming up. The cluster closes on counsel and speech, every purpose needing good advice before it is acted on, and the talebearer who reveals secrets earning the same warning as the flatterer, since loose talk and false praise both cost more than they seem to.

Proverbs 20:20-23

Whoso curseth his father or his mother carries the weight of Exodus 21:17 into proverb form, his lamp put out in obscure darkness picturing a life that goes dark with no candle left to relight. An inheritance gotten hastily at the beginning continues the warning against shortcuts, unblessed at the end however it looked at the start, and say not, I will recompense evil, but wait on the Lord answers personal injury the same way, trading private revenge for God's own timing. The chapter then repeats its opening warning almost word for word, divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord, and a false balance is not good, closing the frame it opened at verse 10.

Proverbs 20:24-27

Man’s goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way? sets the cluster's frame, human planning held inside a sovereignty it cannot fully read. The snare of devouring that which is holy and only asking afterward whether it was lawful describes a vow made carelessly and regretted too late, and the wise king who scatters the wicked and brings the wheel over them pictures a threshing floor, guilt crushed the way grain is crushed. The chapter's most quoted line follows: the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts of the belly, conscience described as a light God himself lit and uses to search a man from within.

Proverbs 20:28-30

Mercy and truth preserve the king closes the chapter's run of king proverbs, his throne upheld by the same mercy that ought to run through the whole administration of justice described earlier. The glory of young men is their strength, and the beauty of old men is the gray head pairs two seasons of life without ranking one above the other, each carrying its own honour. The chapter's last word turns unexpectedly hard: the blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil, and stripes the inward parts of the belly, correction that hurts on the way to doing good, a closing companion to the rod proverbs scattered through the book.