Proverbs 11:18 Commentary and Bible Study

These miniature parables of Solomon are wonderful. They will follow a theme and yet each one looks at a very different aspect of the theme. Here you have yet another quite different aspect of the subject and it is a challenge: Are we productive for God? Are we honest and realistic? So here is the picture. ‘The wicked worketh a deceitful work.’ The work of deceit which the wicked do is a work which deceives expectation. He deceives others because his work falls short of what it appears to be: he cuts corners and delivers a defective product; something which does not justify the wages or esteem that he receives. Here is a man; he is working for his employer in the field, he is a farm manager on a large estate, let's say, and he is not doing an honest job. When he sows the field, he does not want to purchase that much seed. He thinks he can save money on seed. He will pocket some of it, he will buy a small amount and he will sow short. Let's say the arrangement with his employer is that he gets paid per field sown, a certain reward for each field. Well, it is deceitful work and he does not deserve to be rewarded. He has given the man short measure. Or it could be stored grain that he is selling. Someone gives short measure, someone cheats or sells something of poor quality. The gain he gets for it is deceitful. But here is another person and whatever he does, whether it is sowing a field or selling goods, it is just and it is fair. We must not move too directly as though it is a spiritual saying or adage: they are parables. To him that soweth a right measure shall be a sure reward. The meaning is that it will be a fair reward, it cannot be challenged. The Hebrew indicates something along the lines of unchallengeable, not to be questioned, it is fair. No post mortem can show that he has cheated.