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

“Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; But the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth”

Proverbs 17:24

This is a proverb that encourages us to think that the wise thing for us to do is right there in front of us. Duties are rarely across the globe, but rather are to be found in the “next step.”

By the same token, the fool’s eyes are beyond the horizon. 

A moment’s reflection should reveal why this is. If our duties are right in front of us, we can see what they actually are, and we are responsible to engage them. There they are—pick them up and go. In this scenario, our duties come to us from outside. They are assigned to us. We don’t make them up as we go.

But if we are playing the fool, and our eyes are darting back and forth, thousands of miles away, we are in a position to make up our duties, to fashion all our responsibilities to our liking, and to award ourselves with as many honors and awards as we can think of. In other words, we are set free to daydream. And all this daydreaming is detached from what is actually going on in the actual world.

Put another way, daydreaming grants us a measure of felt autonomy. When we look at the path of wisdom, however, there is no felt autonomy at all. There is the diaper to change. There is the report to write. There is the class to teach. We are summoned by the providence of God to do the next thing, which is an obvious thing. Moreover, it is an obvious thing that we are not in charge of, which is the principal reason it rubs us so wrong. 

All things considered, we sometimes feel like we are lost, not knowing what we should do. But the real problem is that we do know what we should do, and we don’t really feel like it.

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

“Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly”

Proverbs 17:12

There are times of the day when a fool is in a quiescent state. They are not “on” all the time. But this proverb tells us that when a fool is “in his folly,” that is an extremely dangerous time to meet him. How dangerous is it? It would be better to be hiking in western Montana, and glance over to the right side of the path and see a mama grizzly, and then to look over to the left side of the path and see three small grizzly cubs.

In other words, to meet a fool when he has gotten up a head of steam is a very dangerous thing indeed. 

One of the reasons why it is more dangerous is that when you meet the bears, it is possible that you might have some idea of which direction to run. There might be a path of escaper that makes some sort of sense. But when you are entangled with a fool, there really is no defense because it is impossible to defend against irrational behavior. 

In his most insightful book, The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity, Carlo Cipolla makes this point. It is possible to defend yourself against a thief because, although the thief is malevolent, he is nevertheless engaging in rule-guided behavior. It is possible to anticipate what his next move might be, and if you can anticipate that move, you can guard yourself against it. But Cipolla defines a stupid person as one who harms others without receiving any real benefit from those actions himself.

If you don’t want to meet a grizzly robbed of her cubs, then it is best just to stay out of bear country. But living in the world as we do, it is not really possible to stay out of fool country. The best defense a person can have is, after one encounter with a person who has been a fool in this way, to steer clear.

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

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death”

Proverbs 16:25

No one wakes up in the morning and says, “Well, I must make sure to ruin my life today.” And yet, there are multiple mornings where people do get up and have breakfast, all to give them the strength to . . . ruin their life that day.

We are rationalizing creatures, which means that when we are hellbent on doing wrong, we have the capacity to explain to ourselves how the whole thing “seems right.” And there are a range of options here. We might convince ourselves that what we want to do is genuinely right when in fact it is really foolish. Or we might acknowledge that it is “technically” wrong, but how can it be wrong when it feels so right. 

In short, the way of disaster is a lot more pleasant at the beginning than it is at the end. Scripture teaches us to evaluate the beginning by the end, and not to evaluate the beginning by the sensations we are experiencing at the beginning. Because we are not there at the end, because the end is not yet upon us, we have to rely on God’s Word to inform us of the nature of that end. 

God is not mocked. You reap what you sow, and there is a straight line connection between what you sow and what you reap. But the crop looks very different than the sack of seed does. The sack of seed had “seems right” emblazoned on the side, and the crop was nothing but death and ruination. 

So when we sow, we must do so in faith. Because we see only the seed, and not the harvest, we must make a point of listening to God’s description of the seed. We must live carefully, and need much more assurance than “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

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

“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall”

Proverbs 16:18

There is likely an inverse ratio between how well known this proverb is, and how closely it is followed. 

Everybody hates pride and conceit . . . in other people. And the reason we don’t like to see it manifested anywhere else, speaking frankly here, is because we don’t like the competition. Ambrose Bierce once defined a boor as someone who talks when you wish them to listen, which is a definition that kind of puts a finger right on the sore spot. 

The interesting thing about pride, also defined here as a haughty spirit, is that what it delivers is very different that what was expected. Pride, or haughtiness, claims to be able to see, and to be able to see better than anyone else. All the signs, all the warnings, all the cautions from friends . . . what do they know?

This proverb tells us that destruction lies straight ahead. A fall is coming. Not only so, but this destruction, this fall, is predicted beforehand. The person walking straight toward it is blind to the realities of his situation, while at the same time claiming to be in full control of his situation. 

This is what happened to Haman in the book of Esther. Mordecai was descended from Kish, the father of Saul, the first king of Israel. Haman was descended from Agag, the one that Saul had failed to execute. The two men are rivals from the opening of the book, and the rivalry goes back generations. Now Haman was exactly the kind of man that this proverb speaks of. He was conceited and vain, and when the king asked him how best to honor a man, Haman, believing himself to be that man, lavished semi-royal honors on him. The honor then went to Mordecai, with Haman having to lead him around as he received that great honor. This was his harbinger of doom. And when he went home and told his family about it, his wife saw the meaning immediately. But it was not the kind of thing that Haman was able to see. And so he went to the banquet, where he would receive his condemnation, and then he was hanged on the gallows that he had built for Mordecai. 

Pride truly does go before destruction.

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

“If a wise man contendeth with a foolish man, whether he rage or laugh, there is no rest”

Proverbs 29:9

“If a wise man contends with a foolish man, whether the fool rages or laughs, there is no peace”

Proverbs 29:9 NKJV

When reading through devotional literature grounded in the book of Proverbs, one is not usually anticipating encountering a quote from Ricky Gervais, but there is a first time for everything. “Remember, when you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is only painful for others. The same applies when you are stupid.”

As I was mulling over the meaning of this proverb, that quote came to mind for some reason. This is a proverb that—thanks to the Internet—has become increasingly relevant. This is because a fool can keep up appearances online a bit longer than he can in real time. Comment threads provide good cover or camouflage for a fool. But even though that is the case, it all comes down to the same end . . . which is that there is no end to it. And the folly does become apparent at some point. 

It is interesting to note how Scripture categorizes the fool’s likely responses—they are rage and mockery. Not only so, but they are rage and mockery that just won’t quit. There is “no peace.”

If a wise man is considering such a scenario knowing that the other man is a fool, then he needs to be able to weigh what the situation actually is. There is a way of getting into it with a fool that is simply joining him in his folly (Prov. 26:4). But there are also times when it is the responsibility of a wise man to shut the fool down promptly (Prov. 26:5). You have to be able to read the situation rightly.

Having said this, there are times when a wise man realizes that he made the wrong call. At such times, he should just say “I can see we are not getting anywhere. Good night all.” He is not going to be able to shut the fool down, and the fool has only been encouraged and emboldened by the whole affair. This brings to mind the old folk adage, which says that you should never wrestle with a pig—you both get muddy, and the pig likes it.

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