At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom” (Proverbs 18:1).
“A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire; He rages against all wise judgment” (Proverbs 18:1, NKJV).
It is not that the KJV translation, cited first above, is wrong . . . but it is unclear and ambiguous. Read a certain way, it can sound like a man wisely interferes with some issue or other. He did this after separating himself (holiness?), and his desire is somehow to help. But this is not the intention of the passage.
The NKJV provides the needed clarity, and this rendering lines up with other translations as well (ESV, NASB, LEB). The proverb is speaking about a stubborn and headstrong man who insists upon seeing everything his own way. As a result of that, he isolates himself from others, refusing to consider the possibility that they have a valuable perspective. Not only does he reject this wise counsel from outside, he reveals the nature of the game he is playing by getting angry over it. He rages against all wise judgment.
The ethical value of our nouns and verbs is often revealed in the nature of the adjectives and adverbs. What I mean is this.
Suppose the man in question has decided that he wants to buy a particular car. Let us suppose that there are all kinds of considerations that weigh against that choice—price, practicality, reliability of the seller, whatever. Let us also say that three people come to him with concerns about his choice—his father, his wife, and his son. Let us now say that he loses his temper with all three. What does that tell us? It tells us that we are almost certainly in Prov. 18:1 territory.
Suppose instead that the man thoughtfully heard everyone out, repeated their concerns back to them to make sure he got it right, promised to reflect on what they had said, as well as to pray about it. And let us say that he did pray about it, but went ahead and bought the car anyway. It might not have been a great decision, but he would not be relegated into the Prov. 18:1 category. He could be vindicated from that charge by the adjectives and adverbs. He did not rage against wisdom.
