Proverbs 10:16 Commentary and Bible Study

The picture is a simple one, and it is fairly clear. When the regular straightforward man is engaged on his smallholding, what does he do it for? Why does he get up early in the morning, milk his animals, tend to his flock, why does he go about the fields, do all that work? It was very hard work in the old days. Well the answer is simple: he has to do it to sustain life. The reason he does it is to keep his family. He has a wife, maybe he has three, four or more small children, and he has got to look after some servants and other people too who help him. He does it all to maintain life. When he is depressed, maybe he thinks about this; maybe this motivates him. He thinks, I do it for my family, and I do it against the long winter. Maybe next year the crops will fail; we have got to be well ahead with plenty in store. Then there is another totally different way of living. This one is only interested in working, because what he has got in his mind is his sin. He wants to be able to buy this or that for his pleasure. He is driven in life by what he personally is going to get out of it: his good times, his holidays, his booze, his drugs, his films, and his clothing. That is what motivates him. All that a man gains, he plans to spend on what means most to him. The righteous man labours hard and receives wages for his efforts which are well deserved. He thinks about how this will help his wife and children and deliver them from hardship and give them advantages in life. He wants to spend what he gains on bringing them an advantage in this life and therefore he stores up his wealth with the intention of improving his lot in the world. But the wicked have their eye on a very different outcome. Because what they live for is sin, then they see all the gain which they receive as the servant of sin and they consider the advantage that their work brings them in terms of greater opportunity to indulge their lusts. However, if we apply this to the subject in hand, the meaning is that the wise man directs all his energy towards obtaining wisdom which will equip him to speak words of life to those around him, for his goal is to employ his tongue to do as much good as he can. He is therefore a witness to the truth of God, to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; he speaks of the forgiveness and redemption that God has made available; he also comforts the downhearted, strengthens the weak, and exhorts all to righteousness. But the wicked are set to do harm with their words. They therefore use flattery to beguile, deception to deceive and steal, threats to corrupt justice, and boasting to exalt self.