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

“If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord shall reward thee”

Proverbs 25:21–22

A common faulty assumption is that Jesus introduced a new ethic in His Sermon on the Mount. Before His day, it is assumed, the Old Testament was full of law, wrath, and a bunch of rules, and Jesus came to bring in the sweetness and light. That assumption runs aground on passages like this.

The apostle Paul quotes it at the tail end of Romans 12, and he clearly explains the context and meaning. When you have an enemy, the chances are good that he has done you wrong, and that you will want to get some of your own back. But Paul tells us not to take revenge ourselves (Rom. 12:19), not because vengeance is wrong, but rather because vengeance belongs to God. Our duty is to step aside and leave room for God to exercise the vengeance that belongs to Him. We see, just a few verses down in chapter 13, that the civil magistrate is the appointed deputy of wrath (Rom. 13:4), God’s deacon of wrath. So don’t go home and get your gun—call the cops instead.

Varied suggestions have been plentiful for what is meant by the burning coals on the head. Some say the Egyptians would carry a tray of burning coals on the head as a sign of repentance. Others say that burning coals were great for starting your hearth fire at home, and so this would be another kind gesture, helping the guy out with even more than the previous food and water you gave him. Another possible interpretation is that by you being nice to him his response becomes a matter of burning shame to him.

But in my view, the most likely one is the one that fits best with how Paul argues from this passage in Romans—your kindness to your enemy is a precursor to the wrath of God.

“As for the head of those that compass me about, Let the mischief of their own lips cover them. Let burning coals fall upon them: Let them be cast into the fire; Into deep pits, that they rise not up again”     

Psalm 140:9–10

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

“As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool”

Proverbs 26:1

We live in a time when honor for fools is seemingly the order of the day. We have adopted the fundamental axiom that what every last person on the planet needs is to be flattered and feted and cozened until they finally bloom into a full version of their radiant selves. People suffer, we are told, from “low self esteem” and our cure all for this affliction is to honor their work, however bad, and to praise their performances, however lame.

A generation or more of this delusion has shown us what a powerful mirror society is—far more potent than an actual physical mirror. If a woman has five roommates who all assure her that her outfit is “cute,” and the mirror in the hallway tells her that it is dismal and godforsaken, she will likely go with the roommates.   

The end result of this kind of flattering honor is the most impudent brazenness, with people going out in public in the most outrageous ways—from their outfits, to their piercings, to their Halloween hair, to their secondary sexual characteristics. And when this happens, our society has determined that such people must be honored. 

Now it used to be that when someone in the grip of such high folly went out in public that they could be treated pretty savagely. But this is one of those inescapable concepts. We still treat people savagely, only now it happens when someone treats the folly as folly. They get the treatment if they use the wrong pronouns. 

But this proverb tells us that to render honor to fools is not fitting. It doesn’t sit right with how God made the world. It its like snow in summer, or like rain during harvest. What is happening is incongruent with what ought to be happening. This proverb provides us with a strong argument against going along with any of this woke nonsense.

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