Proverbs 3:32 - Exposition

This verse gives the reason for the previous warning. The oppressor is here included under the more general term, "the froward." The froward; naloz, hiph. participle from luz , "to bend aside," and hence a perverted or wicked man, one who turns aside from the way of uprightness, a transgressor of the Law (cf. LXX ; παράνομος ); and so the opposite of "the righteous," y'sharim, "the upright," those who pursue the path of justness, or the straightforward. Abomination ( toevah ); i.e. an abhorrence, something which, being impure and unclean (cf. LXX ; ἀκάθαρτος ), is especially abhorrent to Jehovah. In some passages it is connected with idolatry, as in 1 Kings 14:24 and 2 Kings 23:13 , but is never used in this sense in the Proverbs, where it occurs about twenty times (see Proverbs 28:9 ; Proverbs 21:27 ; Proverbs 11:1 , Proverbs 11:20 , etc.). The passage shows that prosperity and worldly success are not always a true measure of Divine favour. His secret ( sodo ); Vulgate, sermocinatio. Here sod probably means "familiar intercourse," as in Job 29:4 and Psalms 25:14 ; and hence the special favour with which Jehovah regards the upright, by revealing to them what he conceals item others, or his friendship (compare what our Lord says in John 15:14 , John 15:15 ). Dathe translates "probis vero est familiaris." Gesenius says sod properly means "a couch," or triclinium on which people recline; but Delitzsch derives it from the root sod, "to be firm," "compressed," and states that it therefore means properly "a being together, or sitting together." The LXX . eontinues the "froward man" ( παράνομος ) as the subject, and renders, "Every transgressor is impure before God, and does not sit together with ( οὐ συνεδριάζει ) the just."