Proverbs 16:5-7

16:5 The Lord abhors ¹  every arrogant person; ² 

rest assured ³  that they will not go unpunished. ⁴ 

16:6 Through loyal love and truth ⁵  iniquity is appeased; ⁶ 

through fearing the Lord ⁷  one avoids ⁸  evil. ⁹ 

16:7 When a person’s ¹⁰  ways are pleasing to the Lord, ¹¹ 

he ¹²  even reconciles his enemies to himself. ¹³ 

[16:5]  ¹ tn Heb “an abomination of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) is a subjective genitive: “the Lord abhors.”

[16:5]  ² tn Heb “every proud of heart”; NIV “all the proud of heart.” “Heart” is the genitive of specification; the phrase is talking about people who have proud hearts, whose ideas are arrogant. These are people who set themselves presumptuously against God (e.g., 2 Chr 26:16; Ps 131:1; Prov 18:12).

[16:5]  ³ tn Heb “hand to hand.” This idiom means “you can be assured” (e.g., Prov 11:21).

[16:5]  ⁴ tc The LXX has inserted two couplets here: “The beginning of a good way is to do justly, // and it is more acceptable with God than to do sacrifices; // he who seeks the Lord will find knowledge with righteousness, // and they who rightly seek him will find peace.” C. H. Toy reminds the reader that there were many proverbs in existence that sounded similar to those in the book of Proverbs; these lines are in the Greek OT as well as in Sirach (Proverbs [ICC], 321-22).

[16:6]  ⁵ sn These two words are often found together to form a nominal hendiadys: “faithful loyal love.” The couplet often characterize the Lord, but here in parallel to the fear of the Lord it refers to the faithfulness of the believer. Such faith and faithfulness bring atonement for sin.

[16:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “is atoned”; KJV “is purged”; NAB “is expiated.” The verb is from I כָּפַר (kafar, “to atone; to expiate; to pacify; to appease”; HALOT 493-94 s.v. I כפר). This root should not be confused with the identically spelled Homonym II כָּפַר (kafar, “to cover over”; HALOT 494 s.v. II *כפר). Atonement in the OT expiated sins, it did not merely cover them over (cf. NLT). C. H. Toy explains the meaning by saying it affirms that the divine anger against sin is turned away and man’s relation to God is as though he had not sinned (Proverbs [ICC], 322). Genuine repentance, demonstrated by loyalty and truthfulness, appeases the anger of God against one’s sin.

[16:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “fear of the Lord.” The term יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “the Lord”) functions as an objective genitive: “fearing the Lord.”

[16:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “turns away from”; NASB “keeps away from.”

[16:6]  ⁹ sn The Hebrew word translated “evil” (רַע, ra’) can in some contexts mean “calamity” or “disaster,” but here it seems more likely to mean “evil” in the sense of sin. Faithfulness to the Lord brings freedom from sin. The verse uses synonymous parallelism with a variant: One half speaks of atonement for sin because of the life of faith, and the other of avoidance of sin because of the fear of the Lord.

[16:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “ways of a man.”

[16:7]  ¹⁰ tn The first line uses an infinitive in a temporal clause, followed by its subject in the genitive case: “in the taking pleasure of the Lord” = “when the Lord is pleased with.” So the condition set down for the second colon is a lifestyle that is pleasing to God.

[16:7]  ¹¹ tn The referent of the verb in the second colon is unclear. The straightforward answer is that it refers to the person whose ways please the Lord – it is his lifestyle that disarms his enemies. W. McKane comments that the righteous have the power to mend relationships (Proverbs [OTL], 491); see, e.g., 10:13; 14:9; 15:1; 25:21-22). The life that is pleasing to God will be above reproach and find favor with others. Some would interpret this to mean that God makes his enemies to be at peace with him (cf. KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT). This is workable, but in this passage it would seem God would do this through the pleasing life of the believer (cf. NCV, TEV, CEV).

[16:7]  ¹² tn Heb “even his enemies he makes to be at peace with him.”