Proverbs 16:17 Commentary and Bible Study

It is a strange way of speaking to describe a road or a highway as something which we navigate by constantly turning aside from something else. We imagine a road with no signposts pointing to the destination but only to other places. The traveller finds the right way by scrupulously avoiding all paths that point to another destination. This description is however one that every believer knows is true from experience. The great enemy is temptation, and Satan constantly advertises side paths and short cuts which claim to advantage us, but which in reality take us away from the Lord. How do we know they are evil? The Spirit of God gives us fair warning of this, and if we are in any doubt we can call on the Lord for guidance. We can ask him to enliven our consciences and show him that we are in earnest about not doing evil. Satan is also quite capable of turning the signs and making them point in a false direction, but we have our own independent way of verifying them through the compass of an enlightened conscience, and so the bare words written on the sign need not deceive us if they have been altered. The fact that they take us away from God’s way is immediately evident, for we constantly apply the tests of justice, truth, goodness, mercy, kindness to every choice we make.The way we go is of paramount importance, because just as a traveller guards life and limb by choosing a safe path and not one that exposes him to sudden falls, or robbers, or impenetrable vegetation, so the spiritual traveller chooses a path that leads to God and does not involve compromise with unrighteousness.