Proverbs 21:8 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Proverbs 21:8

Comments

Every proverb in this block of verses makes a quite distinct point about the difference between the believer and the unbeliever. ‘The way of man is froward’ – that means perverse. The Hebrew is literally twisted, upside down. The word ‘strange’ is the Hebrew word for foreign. What is intended is this: if you know somebody from a far off land, their culture and their ways are strange to us. We do not understand them at first. Actually, their culture may make much more sense than ours if we only knew it, but the point is we do not understand it so we find it strange. And that is the sense here.‘The way of man.’ Some translators scratch their heads and say, ‘This is not understandable, so we will say the way of the wicked.’ But no, the original says ‘the way of man.’ This is a generalisation about all unsaved people. The way of man is perverse and strange. He is unreasonable; he is not logical in his unbelief, so this is about the twistedness of man by the fall.

Application

Well, he is, and I was, and you were, before conversion. We set out on a journey, the journey of life, and we do not know where we are going and we have no map. There is a map, but we refuse to consult it and we refuse the compass. If somebody was to say, ‘Where are you going?’ our reply is, ‘I do not know. I am just going out. I do not know where I am going.’ Well, how perverse, how strange. But viewed spiritually, that is how we set out on the journey of life without God. We do not know where it is going to lead, and we do not have the right equipment for the journey and the right clothing for the journey, spiritually speaking, and we do all those things that are not good for us. So some people eat themselves to death – is that not perverse? Is it not strange? Why is he still eating? ‘Oh, I like comfort foods’, even though they may be killing us. Then there is somebody else and he is drinking, but by doing so he is abdicating his human personhood and knocking out his higher senses and making himself halfway to being a fool.

Before conversion we hate God, the only true benefactor in the universe. We hate God, the only healer in the universe, the great giver in the universe and the teacher of deep and wonderful things. Why hate a benefactor, a healer, a giver, a teacher? How perverse, how strange? The more we look at man, the less we understand him. He is a crazy person before conversion. He lusts and breaks his marriage which was full of love and affection and real companionship and delight. And for the sake of lusts, he smashes it up. And he accumulates wealth only to lose it all at the end of life. ‘The way of man’ – it is an understatement – ‘is froward and strange.’

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Proverbs 21:8 Commentary and Bible Study