At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“The lips of the righteous feed many: But fools die for want of wisdom” (Proverbs 10:21).

One joke making the rounds is that Jesus could not possibly have been a socialism. We know this for a fact because He was actually able to feed people.

There are two halves to this proverb. The first is that the lips of the righteous, meaning the teaching or instruction of the righteous, is able to feed many people. The second half is that fools die because of their want of wisdom. Given the parallel structure of proverbs, the likely implication is that they starve through a lack of agricultural or economic wisdom.

A fool believes that he can feed the people with good intentions, or some convoluted Marxist thing. As a consequence, as a direct consequence, bread lines form.

We are sometimes tempted to over-spiritualize these things. By that I mean we would say that fools die spiritually through want of spiritual wisdom. While this is true, and it does happen, we must remember the book of Proverbs is an intensely practical book. You wouldn’t be surprised to have a proverb telling you to rotate your tires, or to change the oil in your car every three thousand miles.

So of course, there is spiritual death because of spiritual folly, but there is also physical death through spiritual folly. Over the course of the last century or so, tens of millions of people have starved to death because variant forms of economic collectivism. You would think that we knew what this looked like by now, but because it is a spiritual blindness it can affect those who have a high IQ. Folly in Scripture is a moral category.

And this is why a scriptural approach to life will proclaim free grace > free men > free markets. And the result of free markets will be abundant bread, which, as this proverb teaches, will feed many.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“The fear of the Lord prolongeth days: But the years of the wicked shall be shortened” (Prov. 10:27).

This proverb is a good example of the truth value of generalizations. And one of the things that good proverbs excel in would be generalizations.

“Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” is true. “Two parallel lines will never cross each other” is also true, but it is true in a different sort of way. The second statement is an each-and-every-time truth. There will never be a time when parallel lines cross. There have been when early risers and so on . . . have gotten sick.

This proverb says that righteous living in the fear of the Lord extends your life span, and states the opposite with regard to the wicked. This is not true in every instance, but it is nevertheless generally true. Clean living is good for you, and cocaine-fueled motorcycle crashes are not.

This is not the only place where the Lord promises this as a reward. Honor your father and mother, Paul says, and this is the first commandment with a promise. That promise is that those who obeyed the command would “live long” on the earth.

Contextually, the original command in Ex. 20 and Dt. 5 were referring to long life in the land—the land of Canaan that they were going in to possess. But Paul applied this command, originally given to Israelites, to Gentile children well outside the borders of the “land.” The command now goes everywhere, along with the promise. That your life may be long in the earth.

But in both instances, long life is promised, just as it is in this proverb. The righteous walk a steady path, while the wicked like bungee jumping with frayed cords. We are allowed to make note of what usually happens.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction: But he that refuseth reproof erreth” (Prov. 10:17).

A teachable man is walking in the path of life. He keeps instruction. He pays attention. He draws on the wisdom of others. He sorts through counsel. He weighs what he hears from various sources.

He obviously doesn’t do what absolutely everybody else says because there are disagreements between “everybody else.” The Bereans were good examples of this mentality. They received the Word with great eagerness, and searched the Scriptures to see if these things were so (Acts 17:11). They were eager for the good news to be true, but they didn’t just accept it blind. They cross-checked it against the Word. Because the message lined up with Scripture, it was sound, and so they “kept instruction.”

Another kind of person is set up by way of contrast. He is the person who refuses to accept correction from outside himself. He knows what he wants, and he is going to have what he wants. Well, he is going to have what he wants in the abstract. He insists upon having what he wants, which is why he is not going to get what he wants.

The proverb here says that such a foolish person “errs.” Because he insists upon winging it, he meets with disaster.

The other contrast that is implied is the difference between life and death. The prudent man, the one who receives instruction, is one who walks the way of life. The implication is that the fool who follows his own way is walking in the ways of death. This is the way in which he “errs.” This is the foundational error.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool” (Prov. 10:18).

As we study the Scriptures, we are made well aware of the sinfulness of sin. Sin is bad, we know that. We shouldn’t do bad things because they are, well, bad. We learned that in Sunday School also.

But the Bible also teaches us, in multiple places but especially in Proverbs, that sin is stupid as well as being bad. Sin would be bad even if it were profitable, and it sometimes is profitable in the short term. But the Scriptures repeatedly teach us that sin is actually unprofitable. It does not achieve its desired or intended end.

In this proverb, the sin in question is hatred of the heart, hidden by means of lying lips. And the companion to this is slander of others. Piecing these two together, we see that when the person who is guilty of this is together with the person he hates, he keeps that hatred hidden by means of lies. They might be flattering lies, or nondescript lies, but they are lies that cover up the hatred, keeping it out of sight. And then when the victim of the hatred is out of sight, the hater vents, and it comes out in slander.

The bottom line of this proverb is that the person doing this—bottling up hatred, and then pouring it out in slander—is a fool. He thinks he is striking his enemy, but he is simply fouling his own nest.

As someone who has been slandered in many ways over many years, it is worth saying that it is not necessary to answer all your critics. And that is because you can see the fulfillment of this proverb in many of the cases if you simply say nothing and sit tight. I am not saying that it is always a mistake to answer a slander—the apostle Paul answers them. But I am saying that God governs the world in such a way that slanderers frequently fall into the pit they they dug for you.

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