Proverbs 27:19 Commentary and Bible Study

Every word is so carefully chosen to make Solomon’s meaning clear, yet with an extreme economy of expression. The proverb must be turned over in the mind and looked at one way and another, allowing the precise words to eliminate interpretations that go off track. Certainly the picture is of flat water acting as a mirror, so that a man looking straight at it sees his own reflection, and the face he sees answers in every way to his own; so wonderful are the laws of light that they produce a faithful image. This in turn is an illustration of something else that is remarkable. The fact that the man sees his own face in the first part of the proverb should not mistakenly cause us to understand that he sees his own heart in the second part. A man does not need to know his own heart by the sort of mechanism that is described here. He knows his own heart intuitively, directly; indeed his is the only heart he has ever known. Yes, it is true that we need to search our own motive and ask the Lord to search our hearts, but that is different to the sort of knowledge we have of other hearts that is illustrated by the mirror. Without a mirror we would never see our own faces. But in a similar way, the hearts of other human beings are hidden from us, yet there is a mirror which gives us a faithful representation of them. Although we can have no direct experience of another human heart, that heart can almost be made visible to us as we interpret the words and behaviour of another person and come with the strong assumption that they have a real soul like ours. It is an act of faith which every unbeliever makes, whether or not they scorn faith. This conviction of the reality of another soul is the equivalent of the water acting as a mirror which shows us another face. Once this way of knowing is in place, it can be extended to read the character of others. Once we know that they too operate internally as we operate, then we can safely attribute similar thoughts, feelings, and motivations to them.We may attribute characteristics of our fallen nature: pride, jealousy, hatred, lust, cruelty, uncleanness; the sinful heart knows how to read the heart of another fallen human being. This is the experience of all, but the Christian has an altogether different experience which gives him insight into the mind of a believer also: the faith, hope and love which only exist in those who have come to Christ. Of course this is only the start: the ability to read human behaviour based on a shared nature. We must also learn to understand differences as well as similarities, to set limits on what we attribute to others, to know individuals as individuals each with their own particular ways.