Proverbs 6:12 Commentary and Bible Study

In our interpretation of the Book of Proverbs we do not take everything merely at face value. We say, what is this a picture of, or a parable of? So what is this an illustration of, and what does it mean? Let us just look at the picture first. ‘A naughty person’, it means a person who is a worthless one. The word translated ‘naughty’ in the Hebrew, is literally, a son of Belial. And a son of Belial was always used by the Old Testament inspired writers to indicate a worthless person. The translation here is a naughty person. But a worthless person is what is in mind. The term ‘wicked’ there means futile: a futile person, who does wicked things. He ‘walketh with a froward mouth’, in other words, his mouth substitutes for his legs: his mouth is everything, his only instrument.The picture being presented here is this: we have had it before from Solomon in this Book of Proverbs. The idea is you have got to till your farm, and listen to your father’s instruction. He teaches you how to work the farm, so that when he dies or becomes infirm, you can take it over, and you are efficient and skilled, you know everything there is to know about running the farm. But this man does not operate the farm, nor is he skilled in any trade. He does not produce anything; he is not useful in society at all. He is a person who does everything with his mouth. This is going to be a picture of the district doubtful trader. There would be one or two of these in every district.. They were the dodgy traders, who did not produce but made their money in dodgy deals. His walk through life is conducted entirely with his mouth, and it is a froward mouth. Here is a man who lives by his wits, and he gets his living by dodgy deals. When he is buying he talks things down; he gets the lowest possible price he can and then he goes to the next village and now he is selling he talks things up.