Proverbs 6:17














I. WHAT IS AN ABOMINATION? The word (as a verb) is of Roman or pagan origin, and denoted the feeling of abhorrence for what was ill-omened. In the moral sphere all evil conduct is like a bad omen, exciting dread and aversion, because boding calamity. In the direct language of the Bible, referring all things immediately to God, abominations are defined as "things that Jehovah hates, and that are an aversion to his soul" (ver. 16).

II. AS ENUMERATION OF THESE DIVINE AVERSIONS. The particular number is explained by the parallelism of Oriental poetry generally. It has no direct religious significance.

1. Proud eyes. Literally, lofty eyes. The grande supercilium, or haughty brow, of the Romans. The sensuous expression contains and implies in every case the inner mood. This Divine aversion for pride is deeply marked in the Bible and in ancient thought generally. Pride is an excess - the excess of a virtue of due self-valuation. Therefore it is a disturbing element in the moral world, or God's order. It tends to disjoint the social system.

2. A lying tongue. The liar is thus a solvent of society. It must break up were lying to become universal, and must decay so far as the vice of individuals becomes the custom of the multitude.

3. Hands of violence and injustice. The tyrant is a usurper of God's authority. He "plays such tricks... as angels weep at." The judicial murderer sets at naught the justice both of heaven and earth, the rights of God and of men.

4. The malicious, scheming heart. (See on ver. 14.) That quick "forge and working shop of thought" (Shakespeare) that we call the imagination may become a very devil's smithy, a manufactory of the newest implements of mischief, from the patterns of hell.

5. Feet that speed to mischief. All couriers of ill news, eager retailers of slander, all who cannot bear to be forestalled in the hurtful word, who are ambitious of the first deadly blow.

6. The "breather of lies. (Ver. 19.) The false witness, the lying informer; all who trade in falsehood, and breathe it as their atmosphere.

7. The mischief maker. The instigator of quarrels between brethren (see on ver. 14). All who partake of the leavened bread of malice, rather than of the pure, unfermented, and incorruptible bread of sincerity and truth.

1. Our aversions should be God's aversions.

2. The reasoning antipathy is the counterpart of improper sympathy.

3. Our love and our hate are liable to aberration if not governed by reason and religion.

4. Instinctive antipathy means only that we have found in another something that is opposed to our personal sense of well being; conscientious antipathy, that we have found that which is opposed to the order of God's world. - J.

These six things doth the Lord hate.
A catalogue of evils specially odious to the Infinite One.

I. HAUGHTY BEARING. "A proud look." Pride is frequently represented in the Bible as an offence to the Holy God. Haughtiness is an abomination, because it implies —

1. Self-ignorance.

2. Unkindness.

3. Irreverence.

II. VERBAL FALSEHOOD. "A lying tongue."

1. Falsehood always implies a wrong heart. A pure heart supplies no motive for falsehood. Vanity, avarice, ambition, cowardice are the parents and patrons of lies.

2. Falsehood always has a bad social tendency. It disappoints expectations, shakes confidence, loosens the very foundations of social order.

III. HEARTLESS CRUELTY. "Hands that shed innocent blood." Cruelty implies —

1. An utter lack of sympathy with God's creatures.

2. An utter lack of sympathy with God's mind. He who inflicts pain is out of sympathy both with the universe and with his Maker.

IV. VICIOUS SCHEMING. "A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations." There are some hearts so bad that they are ever inventing some evil thing. Illustrate by antediluvian man.

V. MISCHIEVOUS EAGERNESS. "Feet swift in running to mischief." They not only do mischief, but they do it eagerly, with ready vigilance; they have a greed for it.

VI. SOCIAL SLANDER. The slanderer is amongst the greatest of social curses. He robs his fellow-creature of his greatest treasure—his own reputation, and the loving confidence of his friends.

VII. DISTURBING STRIFE. "And he that soweth discord among brethren." He who by tale-bearing, ill-natured stories, and wicked inventions produces the disruptions of friendship, is abhorrent to that God who desires His creatures to live in love and unity. This subject serves to show three things —

1. The moral hideousness of the world. These seven evils everywhere abound.

2. The immaculate purity of God. He hates these things. Therefore they are foreign to himself.

3. The true mission of the godly—to endeavour to rid the world of the evils offensive to Heaven.

(D. Thomas, D. D.)

People
Solomon
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Blood, Cause, Hands, Haughty, Innocent, Lying, Pride, Proud, Shed, Shedding, Tongue, Tongues
Outline
1. against indebtedness
6. idleness
12. and mischievousness
16. seven things detestable to God
20. the blessings of obedience
25. the mischief of unfaithfulness

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Proverbs 6:17

     5156   hand
     5193   tongue

Proverbs 6:12-19

     8736   evil, warnings against

Proverbs 6:16-17

     8278   innocence, teaching on

Proverbs 6:16-18

     5925   rashness
     6186   evil scheming

Proverbs 6:16-19

     1656   numbers, combinations
     6025   sin, and God's character

Library
The Talking Book
A Sermon (No. 1017) Delivered on Lord's Day Morning, October 22nd, 1871 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, by C. H. Spurgeon. "When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee."--Proverbs 6:22. It is a very happy circumstance when the commandment of our father and the law of our mother are also the commandment of God and the law of the Lord. Happy are they who have a double force to draw them to the right--the bonds of nature, and the cords of grace. They sin with a vengeance who sin both against
C.H. Spurgeon—Sermons on Proverbs

An Appeal to Children of Godly Parents
A sermon (No. 2406) intended for reading on Lord's Day, March 31st, 1895, delivered by C. H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, on Lord's Day evening, March 27th, 1887. "My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp; and the law
C.H. Spurgeon—Sermons on Proverbs

The Talking Book
In order that we may be persuaded so to do, Solomon gives us three telling reasons. He says that God's law, by which I understand the whole run of Scripture, and, especially the gospel of Jesus Christ, will be a guide to us:--"When thou goest, it shall lead thee." It will be a guardian to us: "When thou sleepest"--when thou art defenceless and off thy guard--"it shall keep thee." And it shall also be a dear companion to us: "When thou awakest, it shall talk with thee." Any one of these three arguments
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

How Sowers of Strifes and Peacemakers are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 24.) Differently to be admonished are sowers of strifes and peacemakers. For sowers of strifes are to be admonished to perceive whose followers they are. For of the apostate angel it is written, when tares had been sown among the good crop, An enemy hath done this (Matth. xiii. 28). Of a member of him also it is said through Solomon, An apostate person, an unprofitable man, walketh with a perverse mouth, he winketh with his eyes, he beateth with his foot, he speaketh with his finger,
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

A Jealous God
I. Reverently, let us remember that THE LORD IS EXCEEDINGLY JEALOUS OF HIS DEITY. Our text is coupled with the command--"Thou shalt worship no other God." When the law was thundered from Sinai, the second commandment received force from the divine jealousy--"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863

How Subjects and Prelates are to be Admonished.
(Admonition 5.) Differently to be admonished are subjects and prelates: the former that subjection crush them not, the latter that superior place elate them not: the former that they fail not to fulfil what is commanded them, the latter that they command not more to be fulfilled than is just: the former that they submit humbly, the latter that they preside temperately. For this, which may be understood also figuratively, is said to the former, Children, obey your parents in the Lord: but to
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

The Preface to the Commandments
And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God,' &c. Exod 20: 1, 2. What is the preface to the Ten Commandments? The preface to the Ten Commandments is, I am the Lord thy God.' The preface to the preface is, God spake all these words, saying,' &c. This is like the sounding of a trumpet before a solemn proclamation. Other parts of the Bible are said to be uttered by the mouth of the holy prophets (Luke 1: 70), but here God spake in his own person. How are we to understand that, God spake,
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

"Boast not Thyself of to Morrow, for Thou Knowest not what a Day May Bring Forth. "
Prov. xxvii. 1.--"Boast not thyself of to morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." As man is naturally given to boasting and gloriation in something (for the heart cannot want some object to rest upon and take complacency in, it is framed with such a capacity of employing other things), so there is a strong inclination in man towards the time to come, he hath an immortal appetite, and an appetite of immortality; and therefore his desires usually stretch farther than the present
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Heavenly Footman; Or, a Description of the Man that Gets to Heaven:
TOGETHER WITH THE WAY HE RUNS IN, THE MARKS HE GOES BY; ALSO, SOME DIRECTIONS HOW TO RUN SO AS TO OBTAIN. 'And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain: escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.'--Genesis 19:17. London: Printed for John Marshall, at the Bible in Gracechurch Street, 1698. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. About forty years ago a gentleman, in whose company I had commenced my
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

In Death and after Death
A sadder picture could scarcely be drawn than that of the dying Rabbi Jochanan ben Saccai, that "light of Israel" immediately before and after the destruction of the Temple, and for two years the president of the Sanhedrim. We read in the Talmud (Ber. 28 b) that, when his disciples came to see him on his death-bed, he burst into tears. To their astonished inquiry why he, "the light of Israel, the right pillar of the Temple, and its mighty hammer," betrayed such signs of fear, he replied: "If I were
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

"And Watch unto Prayer. "
1 Pet. iv. 7.--"And watch unto prayer." "Watch." A Christian should watch. A Christian is a watchman by office. This duty of watchfulness is frequently commanded and commended in scripture, Matt. xxiv. 42, Mark xiii. 33, 1 Cor. xvi. 13, Eph. vi. 18, 1 Pet. v. 8, Col. iv. 2; Luke xii. 37. David did wait as they that did watch for the morning light. The ministers of the gospel are styled watchmen in scripture and every Christian should be to himself as a minister is to his flock, he should watch over
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Proverbs
Many specimens of the so-called Wisdom Literature are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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