Proverbs 22:12 Commentary and Bible Study

The eyes of the Lord are active in this proverb to govern his creation. They stand for his knowledge of all things: nothing misses his attention. He knows all the mysteries of the deep below; he knows the farthest reach of the universe above; he understands the light which he made and the darkness, the interactions of the smallest particle, the movement of time; he knows the soul of man which he made and how it is united together; he understands human perception, the sense of man, the mechanism of consciousness and memory, the secrets of every heart, the words that we are about the speak, the motives and sins of every person; he knows why he created the world, why he allowed evil to exist, and what will be the end of all things. He knows what is beyond all human imagination to conceive.The eyes of the Lord are a figure for all he sees, and what he sees is what he acts upon. The expression is a condescension to our finite understanding, for God does not learn by seeing as we do; he does not need to observe to know, but he knows all things intuitively, immediately. The expression helps us because it allows us to conceive of God’s knowledge in human terms which we can grasp. The Lord loves to see knowledge in his people and a zeal for his truth so that they count his word as more precious than any other possession and store it up within them. But how does he preserve knowledge? We do not normally think of knowledge as something that needs protecting, preserving; it justifies its own existence. Wardlaw offers three interpretations and dismisses the last as fanciful – that God sees not as man sees, but what he sees is always the true nature of a thing and his knowledge does not change, while man may see a fiction. A second interpretation is that God preserves his truth in the world, and overturns the attacks of the ungodly on it. A third view is that knowledge stands for those who have knowledge. and God preserves the righteous in the world, while overthrowing the faithless. The second part of the proverb implies that the faithless do not have knowledge, and yet they speak words which they hope are not spoken in vain. Yet God opposes them and causes their words to fail. In what sense? In the sense that their analysis of the reality is wrong, their assessment of human nature is flawed, their predictions of the future are inaccurate, and their solution are misguided, their boasts do not come to pass. But God preserves the knowledge of the righteous by doing exactly the opposite in their case. He shows that their view of fallen human nature is correct, that their understanding of origins is right, that their expectations of this world’s doom is correct, and above all that Christ their Lord is King, that he is coming again, and that God’s purpose for the world which they believe in is the only true explanation for history.