Proverbs 24:11 Commentary and Bible Study

In this block of verse on the nature of wisdom, Solomon’s purpose here is to teach the importance of honesty before God. He sets up a situation in which we are under a strong obligation to offer help to another in great need, but in which it would be very easy to pretend that we do not know that help is required and so excuse our indifference towards them. Our indifference is perhaps motivated by laziness or callousness or unwillingness to inconvenience ourselves or put ourselves in danger, but we dishonestly hide behind ignorance. The one who requires help is in great need and in real danger. We can assume that this is someone who is innocent and certainly not one who is being punished justly for some crime. They could have met with an accident or they could be under attack from enemies. To help them may require us to put ourselves in the same danger so that our lives are also at risk. We can imagine that a ship has foundered on the rocks and we discover it and hear the cries of those who are drowning. We must not shut our ears and walk away, for the common duty that God has put on all is to preserve life, and this means that we should do so even if we incur personal risk. If someone turns away in this situation and is questioned about it later, they may be able to lie and men and get away with it, saying, ‘We did not know about this’, but they will not be able to lie to God who sees everything. The plural reference to others – ‘we did not know this’ – is no doubt used to dilute guilt. All the emphasis in the verse is on the impossibility of getting away with this lie, and the real concern is not about what men see or discover about our guilt, but about the inevitable exposure of what we have done by God. Because it is not possible to hide anything from him, then every act of dishonesty, especially in such a solemn matter, is an attempt to lie to God. This is a bar to gaining wisdom. Wisdom is always aware that God sees, and it proceeds towards heaven with absolute integrity, for it knows that the pathway of deceit leads away from God and puts wisdom out of reach. The Christian walks through life meeting the many providences that God places in his path, and each one must be faced with the realisation that he is training us, guiding us, teaching us, sometimes even by experiences that test us to the limit.