Proverbs 12:5 - Exposition

The thoughts of the righteous are right; literally, judgments ; i.e. just and fair, much more then words and actions. St. Gregory ('Mor. in Job,' lib. 25) takes another view, seeing in "judgments" the stings of conscience, and a rehearsal of the day of account. "The righteous," he says, "approach the secret chambers of the Judge in the recesses of their own hearts; they consider how smartly he smites at last, who long patiently bears with them. They are afraid for the sins which they remember they have committed; and they punish by their tears the faults which they know they have perpetrated. They dread the searching judgments of God, even in those sins which perchance they cannot discover in themselves. And in this secret chamber of inward judgment, constrained by the sentence of their own conduct, they chasten with penitence that which they have committed through pride" (Oxford transl.). But the counsels of the wicked —which they offer to others— are deceit. The mere "thoughts" are contrasted with the mature, expressed "counsels" Septuagint, "The wicked steer ( κυβερνῶσι ) deceits." (For "counsels," see notes, Proverbs 1:5 and Proverbs 20:18 .)