Blog - Proverbs 1:11

If you like this blog, then you will like Get Wisdom, Get Understanding which is Pastor Wagner's commentary on Proverbs chapter 1 which is available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle. Find out more here. For all the blogs in this series, click here: Proverbs Commentary. Proverbs 1:11 "If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:" (Pro 1:11)

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Solomon here describes the nature and thinking of fallen, depraved men. These are sinners (Pro 1:10) who have not been saved by grace. This fact is demonstrated by how Solomon describes these wretches several verses later: "For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood" (Pro 1:16). The apostle Paul, when describing the total depravity of man in Rom 3:9-18, cites Pro 1:16 as an example of such, quoting Solomon's words: "their feet are swift to shed blood" (Rom 3:15). Therefore, it can be concluded that the conspirators in Pro 1:10-19 are not a rare exception to the generally good members of the human family, but are actually the norm which all men would imitate if not saved by the grace of God, or, in the case of the reprobate, restrained by the hand of God. The Lord's restraint is the only reason why all fallen men do not act out the wicked devices of these degenerates: "surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain" (Psa 76:10). For a child of God with a conscience, it is difficult to imagine that there are men in this world who actually "lay wait for blood" and "who lurk privily for the innocent without cause." They carry out their despicable deeds privily (not openly or publicly; secretly, privately; stealthily; craftily - OED). They do their devilment in the darkness because they are darkness (2Co 6:14), and they love darkness (Joh 3:19). Thieves steal "in the night" (2Pe 3:10), and "they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night" (1Th 5:7). Thank God that "[we] were sometimes darkness, but now are [we] light in the Lord" (Eph 5:8). These reprobates of whom Solomon warned his son would be classified as psychopaths today, for they "lurk privily for the innocent without cause." Being psychopaths, these men show no empathy for their fellow man, even for those they know to be innocent. Their consciences are seared with a hot iron (1Ti 4:2); they target the vulnerable without cause, feeling no pricks in their stony hearts, and deriving pleasure thereby. When a young man, or any man, comes into contact with someone possessing these wicked tendencies, he must most certainly "walk not [] in the way with them [and] refrain [his] foot from their path" (Pro 1:15).

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