Proverbs 20 explained: Sayings on Honesty and Hidden Motives

Drink, kings and quarrels (vv. 1-4)

Too much wine or beer turns people into mockers and brawlers, and angering a king was as deadly as meeting a roaring lion. Walking away from a fight is honorable, and the farmer who skips plowing because the season is cold finds nothing at harvest.

Hidden hearts (vv. 5-9)

A person's real aims lie hidden like deep water, and it takes insight to draw them out. Many people claim to be loyal, but a truly faithful person is hard to find, and no one can honestly say their heart is free of wrong.

Honest dealing (vv. 10-17)

Money and goods were weighed on scales, and traders who kept one set of weights for buying and another for selling were cheating; the LORD, who made every eye and ear, hates it. Other sayings mock the buyer who runs goods down and then brags about the bargain, and warn that gain from fraud tastes sweet but ends like a mouthful of gravel.

Advice, gossip, parents (vv. 18-21)

Good plans, and even wars, need wise advice, and a gossip who cannot keep secrets is best avoided. Cursing one's parents ends in ruin, pictured as a lamp snuffed out, and an inheritance grabbed too early brings no lasting good.

Revenge, guidance, vows (vv. 22-25)

Instead of paying back a wrong, the reader is told to wait for the LORD; another saying adds that the LORD directs each person's steps, so no one fully understands their own way. A separate warning says that promising something to God on impulse and only thinking it over afterward is a trap.

Kings, the inner self, age (vv. 26-30)

A wise king crushes wrongdoers like a heavy threshing wheel rolled over grain, a harsh image, yet loyal love keeps his throne secure, and both youth's strength and old age's gray hair have their own glory. The human spirit is called the LORD's lamp searching a person's depths, often read as conscience, and the last line reflects that culture's belief that physical punishment could cleanse a person inside.

Key verse: Proverbs 20:9

Something to think about

Which is harder for you to see clearly: the real motives of other people, or your own?