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Proverbs 16: What the Passage Says

69 claims across 33 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Proverbs 16 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter is a collection of short, separate sayings. Several of them set human planning beside the LORD's control: people make plans, judge their own ways as pure, and cast lots, but the LORD gives the answer, weighs motives, directs steps, and decides the outcome. A group of sayings in the middle deals with kings, their judgments, their anger, and their favor. The rest treat pride and humility, honest weights, careful and careless speech, gray hair, and self-control.

Claim by Claim

  1. 16:1
    • The arrangements or plans of the heart belong to man.
    • The answer of the tongue comes from the LORD.
    • The King James joins the two clauses so that both the heart's preparations and the tongue's answer are said to be from the LORD.
  2. 16:2
    • All of a man's ways are pure in his own eyes.
    • The LORD weighs the spirits.
  3. 16:3
    • Roll your works onto the LORD.
    • If you do, your plans will be established.
  4. 16:4
    • The LORD has made everything for its own purpose.
    • The LORD has made even the wicked for the day of evil.
  5. 16:5
    • Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD.
    • The proud in heart will not go unpunished.
    • Though hand join to hand, the proud will not escape punishment.
  6. 16:6
    • By covenant love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for.
    • By the fear of the LORD one turns away from evil.
  7. 16:7
    • A man's ways can please the LORD.
    • When a man's ways please the LORD, even that man's enemies are made to be at peace with him.
  8. 16:8
    • A little with righteousness is better than great revenues without justice.
  9. 16:9
    • A man's heart plans his way.
    • The LORD establishes his steps.
  10. 16:10
    • An oracle or divine verdict is on the lips of a king.
    • The king's mouth does not act treacherously in judgment.
    • It is unclear whether the second clause states that the king's mouth does not betray justice or requires that it must not.
  11. 16:11
    • A just balance and scales belong to the LORD.
    • All the weights in the bag are his work.
  12. 16:12
    • Doing wickedness is an abomination to kings.
    • A throne is established by righteousness.
  13. 16:13
    • Righteous lips are the delight of kings.
    • Kings love the one who speaks what is upright.
  14. 16:14
    • The wrath of a king is messengers of death.
    • A wise man will appease that wrath.
  15. 16:15
    • In the light of a king's face there is life.
    • A king's favor is like a cloud bringing the latter rain.
  16. 16:16
    • Getting wisdom is far better than getting gold.
    • Getting understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.
  17. 16:17
    • The highway of the upright turns aside from evil.
    • He who guards his way preserves his life.
  18. 16:18
    • Pride goes before destruction.
    • A haughty spirit goes before a fall.
  19. 16:19
    • It is better to be lowly in spirit with the poor and humble than to divide spoil with the proud.
  20. 16:20
    • He who attends wisely to a matter will find good.
    • Whoever trusts in the LORD is blessed.
  21. 16:21
    • The wise in heart will be called discerning.
    • Sweetness of speech increases learning.
  22. 16:22
    • Understanding is a fountain of life to the one who has it.
    • The instruction of fools is folly.
  23. 16:23
    • The heart of the wise man instructs his mouth.
    • The heart of the wise man adds learning to his lips.
  24. 16:24
    • Pleasant words are a honeycomb.
    • Pleasant words are sweet to the soul.
    • Pleasant words are healing to the bones.
  25. 16:25
    • There is a way that seems right to a man.
    • The end of that way is the ways of death.
  26. 16:26
    • The appetite of a laborer labors on his behalf.
    • His mouth urges him on.
  27. 16:27
    • A worthless man digs up evil.
    • On his lips there is something like a scorching fire.
  28. 16:28
    • A perverse man sends out strife.
    • A whisperer separates close friends.
  29. 16:29
    • A violent man entices his neighbor.
    • A violent man leads his neighbor in a way that is not good.
  30. 16:30
    • He who shuts his eyes does so to devise perverse things.
    • He who compresses his lips has brought evil to completion.
  31. 16:31
    • Gray hair is a crown of glory.
    • That crown is found in the way of righteousness.
    • The King James states the second clause as a condition, that the gray head is a crown of glory if it is found in the way of righteousness.
  32. 16:32
    • He who is slow to anger is better than a mighty man.
    • He who rules his own spirit is better than he who captures a city.
  33. 16:33
    • The lot is cast into the lap.
    • Every decision of the lot is from the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

16:1
"Heart" in Hebrew usage means the mind and will (the place where a person thinks, decides and plans), rather than the feelings. It carries that sense throughout this chapter (verses 1, 5, 9, 21, 23). The second half is compressed in the Hebrew and can be taken more than one way: either that the words a person finally manages to speak come from the LORD, or that the reply he gets back does.
16:2
The picture is a merchant's balance scales, the same image used in verse 11: a person's inner motives are placed in the pan and weighed against a standard he did not set. "Spirits" here means what is actually driving someone, as opposed to how his conduct looks from outside.
16:3
The Hebrew verb behind "commit" literally means "roll", roll your work onto the LORD, as you would roll a weight off your own back onto something able to carry it.
16:4
The Hebrew phrase translated "for himself" or "for his own purpose" is disputed: it can mean "for its own purpose or answer" (that is, everything is made with its matching counterpart) or "for his own ends." "The day of evil" means a day of disaster or reckoning, not a day on which someone does wrong.
16:5
"Abomination" translates a Hebrew word meaning something detestable, the sort of thing that disgusts and is refused outright; it is a standing formula in Proverbs for what the LORD rejects (see also verse 12). The King James "though hand join in hand" renders an idiom taken from clasping hands to seal a bargain, so it means something like "you can shake on it", depend on it, this will happen.
16:6
"Mercy and truth" translates two Hebrew words, *hesed* and *emet*, that belong together: steady loyalty to a commitment and dependability in keeping it. "Purged" translates the word used of atonement, sin covered over or wiped away. "The fear of the LORD" is a set phrase in Hebrew for reverent awe and taking God seriously, not fright.
16:8
"Revenues" means income, the money coming in. "Without right" means it was gotten unfairly.
16:10
The word rendered "divine sentence" is normally the term for divination, the oracle a seer produces. Applying it to a king's verdict is unusual, and the second line is grammatically ambiguous: it can be read as a statement (his mouth does not betray justice) or as an obligation (his mouth must not betray justice).
16:11
Before coined money, goods were paid for by weighing out silver against stone weights that a merchant carried in a pouch. A dishonest trader kept two sets, a heavy one for buying and a light one for selling. Saying the honest weight "belongs to the LORD" means the standard itself is not the merchant's to set.
16:12
"Abomination" is the same strong word used of the LORD in verse 5, something detestable and to be refused.
16:14
Kings could have a sentence carried out on the spot by an officer of the court, so "messengers of death" is not a metaphor for gloom but for an execution party actually being sent.
16:15
A bright or lifted-up face is the standard Hebrew idiom for favor and goodwill, as a darkened face is for anger. The "latter rain" is the spring rain of March and April, which came late in the growing season and filled out the grain before harvest; without it the crop failed.
16:17
A "highway" is a built-up, cleared road, as opposed to a rough track, in Proverbs the picture of a way of life that is level and passable. "Soul" here translates a word meaning life itself, not an immaterial part of a person.
16:18
The familiar English saying "pride goes before a fall" is a compression of these two lines; the Hebrew states it twice in parallel, with "destruction" in the first half and "a fall", a stumble or collapse, in the second.
16:19
Dividing the spoil means sharing out plunder after a raid or a victory, the moment when the winners took their cut. "The lowly" are the poor and downtrodden, people of no social weight.
16:20
The Hebrew word here can mean either "a matter, an affair" or "a word, a teaching," so the line can be read as paying close attention to the business in hand or as heeding instruction. Both readings are current.
16:21
"Prudent" is an old word for someone with good sense who thinks before acting.
16:22
The second line is ambiguous in Hebrew. "The instruction of fools" can mean the teaching fools hand out, which is worthless, or the correction fools receive, which is their own folly and teaches them nothing.
16:24
In Hebrew idiom the bones stand for the body's strength and physical wellbeing generally, so "health to the bones" means healing to the whole person.
16:26
The word translated "mouth" or "appetite" is the same word rendered "soul" elsewhere; here it means hunger, the physical need that gets a person out to work in the morning.
16:27
The King James "ungodly man" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning literally "man of Belial", a worthless, good-for-nothing person. "Diggeth up evil" uses the image of digging: either excavating trouble that was buried, or digging a pit for someone to fall into.
16:28
"Froward" is old English for crooked, twisted out of true. A "whisperer" is a person who carries private talk from one person to another, and "chief friends" means the closest of friends.
16:29
"Neighbour" in the Bible means anyone living near you or anyone you deal with, not only the family next door.
16:30
Narrowing or winking the eyes and pressing the lips tight were recognized gestures of someone scheming, the visible signs of a plot being hatched, readable to bystanders the way a smirk is.
16:31
"Hoary" means white or gray with age. Long life was regarded as a mark of honor, and the elderly held authority in the community; the second line qualifies rather than assumes it.
16:32
Capturing a walled city was the highest achievement in ancient warfare, requiring a siege and enormous cost, so it stands here for the most impressive thing a strong man could do.
16:33
Casting lots was a recognized method for settling questions that could not be decided otherwise, dividing land, assigning duties, picking a man out of a group. Marked stones or pieces of wood were shaken out into the fold of a robe held at the waist. The point of the proverb turns on the fact that the throw itself is random.

Read Proverbs 16