Proverbs 6:14 - Exposition

From these external features the teacher passes to the heart the seat of all this mischief and deceit. In this respect we observe a striking correspondence with the method adopted by our Saviour in his leaching, who referred everything to the heart, as the true seat of all that was good or bad in man. Frowardness is in his heart (Hebrew, tah'pukoth b'libbo ); i.e. his heart is full of perverse imaginations, it is there he nourishes his jealousy, his hatred, his malice, his ill will. It is there, too, he deviseth mischief continually. "Devising mischief" carries us one step further back in the history of evil. It is this feature, this deliberate premeditation to plot mischief and to devise means to carry it into execution, which makes the character of the man simply diabolical. He makes his heart as it were the workshop wherein he fabricates and prepares his villainy. The Hebrew kharash (to which the participle khoresh belongs) is equivalent to the Vulgate machinari, and the LXX . τεκαίνομαι , "to fabricate, devise, plot." (See Proverbs 3:29 and Proverbs 3:18 ; and cf. Psalms 36:4 , "He deviseth mischief upon his bed.") The LXX . combines the two statements in one proposition: "A perverse heart deviseth evil at all times." Similarly the Vulgate, which, however, joins "continually" (Hebrew, b'koleth ; Vulgate, omni tempore ) to the second hemistich, thus: "And at all times he sows discord ( et omni tempore jurgia seminat ) . " He soweth discord (Hebrew, mid'-yanim (Keri) y'shalleakh ); literally, he sends forth ( i.e. excites) strife ; or, as the margin, he casteth forth strife. The Keri reading mid'yanim, for the Khetib m'danim, is probably, as Hitzig suggests, derived from Genesis 37:36 . The phrase occurs again as shallakh m'danim in Genesis 37:19 , and as shillakh madon Proverbs 16:28 (cf. Proverbs 10:12 ). This is the culminating point in the character of the wicked man. He takes delight in breaking up friendship and in destroying concord among brethren (see Proverbs 16:19 ), and thus destroys one of the most essential elements for promoting individual happiness and the welfare of the community at large. This idea of the community is introduced into the LXX ; which reads, "Such an one brings disturbance to the city ( ὁ τοσοῦτος ταραχὰς συνίστησι πόλει )." The motive cause may be either malice or self-interest.