I. The thoughts of the righteous or godly man are right. 1. Because he has the best material out of which to build his thoughts. The kind of building which is reared will depend mainly upon the quarry from which the stones are hewn. The man of God gets the material of his thoughts from the revealed Word of God. He obeys the Divine command.—“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night” (Josh. i. 8). 2. Because his thinking is under the rule of law. He does not allow his mind to dwell upon every suggestion that comes into it, he forbids certain things to enter there, or if they enter in an unguarded moment, he will not give them a dwelling place. He does not give unqualified assent to the boast that “thought is free.” The righteous man does not aspire to be a “free-thinker,” if he did he could not be a good thinker. He rules his thoughts according to the legislation of Christ (Matt. v. 28; xv. 18), and endeavours to bring every thought into obedience to Him (2 Cor. x. 5).
II. The speech of the righteous. A man’s words are never worse than his thoughts. In a good man they are the outcome of his thoughts. As the child is the undeveloped man, and the seed the undeveloped tree, so thought is the seed of speech. If the child’s constitution is good and the seed is good, the man and the tree will be healthy and vigorous. If the thought is healthy and wise the speech will be so likewise, for “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matt. xii. 34).
III. The thoughts of the wicked. They are such as spring spontaneously from the human heart, which is, according to the estimate of One who knows, “deceitful above all things” (Jer. xvii. 9). In such a heart counsels or thoughts of deceit must be generated. His own life-work will be a deceit (chap. xi. 18), and he will deceive others. The verse evidently refers to thoughts which purpose harm to other people. When a man’s thoughts are not in subjection to the law of God, they have a tendency to go from bad to worse. The ungodly man, either directly or indirectly, injures others as well as himself.
IV. The words of the wicked. The ungodly are here represented, as in chap. [xi. 21], as combining to injure the godly (see Homiletics on that verse). Their words are the outcome of their evil and malicious thoughts. Most ungodly men try to lessen the influence of the good by depreciating their character when they do not dare to attack their property and their lives. This lying in wait for blood may cover all schemes to bring about the downfall of the good. The two characters now stand before us. Let us look at what is in store for each. I. For the righteous. 1. Deliverance from the machinations of the wicked. This is effected by means of the godly man’s own words. He is able to refute what his enemies bring against him. This proverb cannot of course be taken to assert that the righteous are always delivered from death at the hands of their persecutors. They are delivered as Christ was delivered from the counsels of deceit, and from the bloody plans of the Scribes and Pharisees. The words here used exactly describe their character, and the deliverance of the righteous is such a deliverance as our Lord wrought for Himself by the words of truth and wisdom with which He silenced them Take the instance of the tribute-money as recorded by Matthew (chap. xxii. 15). “Then went the Pharisees and took counsel how they might entangle Him in His talk. And they sent out unto Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that Thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest Thou for any man; for thou regardest not the person of men. Tell us, therefore, What thinkest Thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Show me the tribute money. And they brought Him a penny. And He saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto Him, Cæsar’s. Then saith He unto them, Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s. When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.” Two other instances of Christ’s delivering Himself by His “mouth” are given in the same chapter. And many of His followers have in like manner defeated the plans of their enemies. 2. The establishment of his family. His thoughts and words bless his own house—they are the means of reproducing other characters whose thoughts and words are like his own. This of itself is a good reason why his house should stand. Each member of it thus becomes a centre of influence for good, and in this way the world is preserved from moral corruption and ruin. And it is a law of God’s kingdom that the godliness of the head of a family or race should bring a blessing upon his posterity. God defended the people of Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah for “His servant David’s sake” (Isa. xxxvii. 35). He blessed Isaac for “my servant Abraham’s sake” (Gen. xxvi. 24). And the same law is at work in New Testament times, “The promise is unto you and to your children” (Acts ii. 39). 3. General commendation. The wise and the righteous are synonymous in the book of Proverbs, the wisdom of the 8th verse is, doubtless, moral wisdom. Paul calls his Corinthian converts, whom he had begotten by his holy thoughts and wise words, his “letters of commendation” (2 Cor. iii. 1–3). Every godly man has some such commendatory epistles in the living souls who his life and words have blessed. Men can but acknowledge that he is a blessing to his fellow-creatures while he lives, and after he has left the world he is praised by, and because of, those whom he “turned to righteousness” (Dan. xii. 3). II. But for the wicked there must be—1. Overthrow. They entered the lists against a power must stronger than their own, and must therefore come to ruin. The stubble of the field can contend for a time against the fire, but the latter grows stronger the longer it burns, and the stubble is less and less able to resist its power, until presently there is nothing left but a few ashes which are soon scattered by the winds, and the place that once knew them knows them no more, “For behold the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud and all that do wickedly shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch” (Mal. iv. 1). 2. General contempt. The wicked or “perverse of heart” will not be able to respect himself, how then can he expect others to hold him in honour? And in the day of his overthrow the contempt or indifference with which both he and his fate will be regarded will not come from those who he has striven to injure, but from those who are like himself. Those who have already met with their overthrow will be those who will meet him with the taunt, “Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?” (Isa. xiv. 10). And those whose time of judgment is yet in the future will not stoop to pity or succour him.
outlines and suggestive comments.
Verse 5. That thoughts are free, is his lesson, by which we are made slaves unto sin. For if the thoughts be corrupted, the affections will soon be polluted, and then the actions are easily perverted. If the flies of Egypt get into our eyes, the frogs of Egypt will soon get into our chambers, the caterpillars of Egypt will soon destroy our fruits, the actions of our lives. The counsels of the wicked are deceit—they deceive God of His honour, their neighbour of his right, themselves of their salvation.—Jermin.
The stress lies upon the words, “thoughts” or “purposes,” and “counsels.” Habits of good and evil reach beyond the region of outward act to that of impulse and volition.—Plumptre.
To the righteous are ascribed simple and clear thoughts, to the godless, prudently thought through schemes and measures, but on that very account not simple, because of their tendency.—Delitzsch.
If good thoughts look into a wicked heart, they stay not there, as those that like not their lodging; the flashes of lightnings may be discerned into the darkest prisons. The light that shines into a holy heart is constant, like that of the sun, which keeps due times, and varies not the course for any of these sublunary occasions.—Trapp.
At the first creation man was made to excel brute beasts more by the reason and gifts of the soul than by the fashion and shape of the body, so at the second, a Christian is made to excel sinful men more by the holiness and working of the soul than by those of the body.—Dod.