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

“Debate thy cause with thy neighbour himself; And discover not a secret to another: Lest he that heareth it put thee to shame, and thine infamy turn not away”

Proverbs 25:9-10

“Debate your case with your neighbor, and do not disclose the secret to another; Lest he who hears it expose your shame, and your reputation be ruined”

Proverbs 25:9-10

This is a proverb that warns us about that dangers of talking out of school. If you have a dispute someone, your neighbor, say, this text says that you should go to him directly. Deal with him, the one with whom you differ.

While you are doing this, Scripture says, deal with him alone. Do not play to the nickel seats. Do not canvas the surrounding population to see what they think. In short, do not be political.

The assumption made here by the Word of God is that if word of your behavior gets out, it will be seen for what it is—disgraceful. When a problem arises, one of the ways you can identify the responsible people in the situation is by looking closely at how they handle the situation with others. Apart from the merits of the dispute, are they handling the manner of the dispute responsibly? 

It is important not to let the dispute spread any more broadly than it needs to. There are many who like to style themselves as peacemakers when they are actually agitators. Say that someone comes to the pastor with “a concern.” You know, one of those. They talk about it for a while, and when the pastor fails to give satisfaction, what should we conclude when the person then says something like, “You know, there are many others who feel the same way that I do . . .”

To which the pastor should say, “Ah, I see. You’ve been talking to a lot of people about this then?”

That’s not peacemaking, and it truly is disgraceful.   

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

“The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them; Because they refuse to do judgment”

Proverbs 21:7

“The violence of the wicked will destroy them, Because they refuse to do justice”

Proverbs 21:7

The disparity between the KJV and NKJV (robbery/violence) is not the result of mistranslation, but rather the consequence of the underlying word having a broad semantic range—despoil, oppress, devastate, deal violently, rob, pillage. 

The principle here is that a certain kind of wickedness, greedy for gain, snatches at that gain in counterproductive and suicidal ways. Because justice is not their concern at all, they refuse to “do judgment.” They do not recognize any standard over them that arises from outside the realm of their own lusts and desires. All their guiding principles arise from within, and the end result of that is self-destruction. 

They fall into the pit they dug for others. Haman built a gallows for Mordecai, and yet he was the one who wound up swinging from it. They scheme and plot without reference to righteousness, which is why a righteous universe will not suffer them to get away with it. The way the world is recoils upon them. They get caught in their own traps, tangled up in their own wires, ensnared by their own tricksy hearts. 

All of this is because they would not tolerate that hateful word no. They refused accountability, and resolved to ignore any admonitions that went contrary to what they wanted in the moment. As it turns out, this is a very poor strategy for making your way in the world. It is an artificial feedback loop that provides you with nothing but lies to go on. 

There is only one thing that the violent robber does recognize that is outside of him, and that would be the shiny bauble that he is reaching for. But it, like everything else in this arrangement, is deceptive. 

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

“Mercy and truth preserve the king: And his throne is upholden by mercy”

Proverbs 20:28

Thrones are established by two things. One of them is intuitive, and we understand it naturally, and the other is pretty counter-intuitive. 

First, kings are frequently established by strength, by conquest. That is pretty simple to understand. Either it happens, or somebody understands that this is how it frequently happens, and so they make their attempts on the basis of it. “Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal” (Isaiah 7:6).

The counter-intuitive way to establish a throne is pointed to by our proverb. Truth and mercy are a king’s preservation. One of the things that upholds his throne is mercy. 

In this, our thrones are like God’s throne. But what is counter-intuitive to us (because of our sin) is not at all counter-intuitive to Him. “Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: Mercy and truth shall go before thy face.” (Psalm 89:14). Notice how these things harmonize—justice, judgment, mercy, truth. There is no discordant note there. 

“And in mercy shall the throne be established: And he shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking judgment, and hasting righteousness” (Isaiah 16:5).

Christian leadership understands that these things all go together. Righteousness and peace are friends, after all. They kiss each other (Ps. 85:10). This should not be surprising to any Christian, because when we petition the Lord for mercy, we are coming to a throne of grace. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). An understanding of this should be down in our bones, in such a way as to enable us to petition the Lord for mercy with boldness. We must not come to Him crawling. His promises are stronger than that. His throne is mightier than that.

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

“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set”

Proverbs 22:28

This is a proverb from which we may draw two applications. The first is the obvious and literal meaning. It is a proverb that refers to the boundary markers for a piece of property, let us say the large boulder on the northeast corner. If an unscrupulous neighbor decided to enlarge his holdings, all he would need to do is move the boulder. But the children of Israel were commanded to honor the apportionments of their fathers, and to leave the ancient landmarks right where they were.

This proverb requires that the landmarks be honored, thus echoing the demands of the Torah. First, a curse is pronounced on the one who is guilty of this great evil, and all the people acknowledge the justice of the curse.

“Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen” (Deuteronomy 27:17). 

The standard is also stated a few chapters earlier in Deuteronomy. 

“Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the Lord thy God giveth thee to possess it” (Deuteronomy 19:14).

We have the same elements. The moving of the landmarks is prohibited, and the historical significance of the inheritance being platted the way it is is affirmed. In addition, it is emphasized that this legacy, with the markers just where they were, is the inheritance that the Lord God bestowed on them. The command not to steal is a command that presupposes private property, just as the command not to commit adultery presupposes the institution of marriage. God is therefore watching the person who moves that boulder.

Another similar proverb adds an additional element. 

“Remove not the old landmark; And enter not into the fields of the fatherless” (Proverbs 23:10).

Here it is assumed that this form of theft is being perpetrated on orphans—people who might be helpless to defend themselves in court. They might not be able to afford lawyers. Jesus says something in a similar vein about this kind of problem. 

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation” (Matthew 23:14).

No, it is not sharp business practices. It is theft, pure and simple.

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

“The glory of young men is their strength: And the beauty of old men is the gray head”

Proverbs 20:29

One way of looking at this proverb is to acknowledge that there is a time and a season for everything. There is a time to be young and limber, and a time to be old and creaky. 

But the proverb doesn’t put it that way. It does not compare this advantage to that disadvantage. Rather it compares a young man’s glory to an old man’s beauty. 

This proverb was probably in the mind of the apostle John when he wrote about children, fathers, and young men. First, the children were blessed because they were forgiven (1 John 2:12), and because they had known the Father (1 John 2:13). 

But then John gets to the same general categories addressed by our proverb, and the things he emphasizes map onto the proverb fairly well.

The young men are honored as those who have overcome the wicked one (1 John 2:13), and because the Word of God lives in them, because they are strong, and because they have overcome the wicked one (1 John 2:14). Strength is mentioned both in Proverbs and in this passage, and the fact of overcoming, which requires strength, is mentioned twice. 

John has written the fathers because they have known Him who was from the beginning (1 John 2:13, 14). The fathers were written because of their knowledge of God, because they were wise. 

Of course it is possible for a young man to use his strength in the wrong way, and it is possible for an old man to be a fool. But when young men are being what they ought to be—strong, aggressive, and not risk-averse, the Bible calls it a glory. And when an old man remembers what it was like to be strong and aggressive, and still carries the scars of not being risk averse, the symbol of that is his gray head—which Scripture calls beautiful. 

In the Lord, youth should not disparage old age, and in the Lord, old age must not disparage youth.

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