Proverbs 17:19

Whoever loves transgression loves strife; he who makes his door high seeks destruction. [Proverbs 17:19]   We do not live lives of peace, we men of earth. Always trouble is in our hearts; ever trouble looms in our lives; perpetually the world whispers of the destruction it can unleash against itself. “Here wealth is fleeting;…

Proverbs 17:17

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. [Proverbs 17:17]   Hardship is, to put it tautologically, the unpleasant part of life. It’s the part where you or I run headfirst into a brick wall, bounce off, and have to ask, ‘Will I climb over? Will I turn back?’ When…

Proverbs 17:15

He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord. [Proverbs 17:15]   The word here translated ‘abomination’ is no weak thing. It is not ‘unpleasant,’ it is not ‘ugly,’ it is not ‘repellent.’ It isn’t even something as simple as ‘evil.’ ‘Abomination,’ תּוֹעֵבָה (to-ay-baw), tells…

Proverbs 17:14

“The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out.” [Proverbs 17:14]   Water is calm and placid, when contained. When let loose, though, when given a single small egress, water destroys; it rushes and tears and cuts through the land like a knife, riving apart any who stand…

Proverbs 17:13

“If anyone returns evil for good, evil will not depart from his house.” [Proverbs 17:13]   The most disgusting characters in fiction, I find, are the traitors. Adulterers, turncoats, false friends, they induce a concentrated hatred and revulsion; they have in them something which mere murder, mere villainy, cannot match. Whether they are parents who…

Proverbs 17:12

Let a man meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs rather than a fool in his folly. [Proverbs 17:12]   How pleasant is it to taunt an angry mama bear? 10 out of 10 corpses say: “Not very.” It’s definitively a Bad Idea. Yet the author of the proverb considers it the smaller risk, smaller…

Proverbs 17:11

An evil man seeks only rebellion, and a cruel messenger will be sent against him. [Proverbs 17:11]   We sometimes wonder at the persistent evil of other men. We watch men act in ways that seem deliberately foolish, deliberately self-destructive, deliberately and causelessly malicious. We find ourselves wondering at the sheer impertinence of the wicked,…