Proverbs 8:13 - Exposition

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Wisdom here enunciates the proposition which is the foundation of all her teaching, only here, as it were, on the reverse side, net as the beginning of wisdom ( Proverbs 1:7 ; Proverbs 9:10 ), but as the hatred of evil; she then proceeds to particularize the evil which the Lord hates. Taking the clause in this sense, we have no need to alter the persons and forms of the verbs to "I fear the Lord, I hate evil," as Dathe and others suggest; still less to suppress the whole paragraph as a late insertion. These violent measures are arbitrary and quite unnecessary, the present text allowing a natural and sufficient exposition. There can be no fellowship between light and darkness; he who serves the Lord must renounce the works of the devil. Pride and arrogancy, which are opposed to the sovereign virtue of humility, are the first sins which Wisdom names. These are among the things which the Lord is said to hate ( Proverbs 6:17 , etc.). "Initium omnis peccati est superbia" ( Ecclesiastes 10:15 , Vet. Lat.). The evil way ; i.e . sins of conduct, "way" being, as commonly, equivalent to "manner of life." The froward mouth; literally, mouth of perverseness, sins of speech (see on Proverbs 2:12 ; and comp. Proverbs 10:31 ); Vulgate, os bilingue.