Dissection of Proverbs 23:17: Holy Terror Beats Sin Every Time

Let not thine heart envy sinners: But be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long. (Proverbs 23:17).

As a believer in Christ, I am fully recognizing my own innate and constant proclivity to miss the mark set by God. What this proverb connotes, however, is that we are not coveting in our innermost self (the heart) what active sin yields. I should not jealously grouse over the habits of a rich man who has everything but God. I should not enviously covet a young man’s 1 am female bar prize.

Sin has become an unwelcome guest in most conversations today. The reason is, people don’t want anyone, including God Almighty, to come along and put the kabosh on their fun. I was one of you once. But then I realized the huge cost of sin, and I no longer envy sinners. I don’t want the money, the physical sensations, the “free spirit.” I see where it leads. I have lived that life and it reeks of death. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

Now let’s break this down in an official dissection, using definitions plucked from Davidson’s Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, and a smattering of Genesius:

Let not thy heart [Hebrew: leb -- heart, middle, midst] envy [qana -- to be jealous, to envy] sinners [chatta -- one who misses the mark]: But be thou in the fear [yirah -- to fear, terror, reverence, awe] of the Lord [Yehovah -- the Existing One] all the day [yowm -- day, daily].

Now we’ll plug in the definitions and get this nifty paraphrase:

Let not thy midst be jealous of those who miss the mark: But reverentially be terrified of the Existing One daily.

Often, to get a good understanding of the material, it helps to take a look at the bottom of the sentence first. We have the Existing One… The ancient Hebrew concept of Jehovah-God. The One Who Exists! Unlike the many gods that romp and ravel all through the minds of billions of the planets nonbelievers, gods that excuse sin and in many cases work it into their daily worship routines. Not this God. This is the real God. 

If we believe in this God, we must show the right kind of reverential terror. And we have do this daily. And thus, we build up the practice of realizing that people who are living the life of sin are truly missing the mark of God, and that indeed, we are missing nothing. Let us not sit on the sidelines of sin wishing we were in that game, but let us instead run the race that God has set before us… OK — I’m looking ahead into the next Testament… 

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us… (Hebrews 12:1) See, there are witnesses all around us too, and they might not all be in the natural world. Many are cheering us on, to not give in, to not detract from God’s pure glory by delving into the hypocritical morass of stinking sin.

We can say, therefore, that, as God’s children, we are not on the sidelines watching other sinners, but we are actively in the game of righteousness, striving with God to complete His work on earth. Oh, this is not a game, because it has the most serious of consequences, but it is a contest, against Satan and his stores of evil temptations and we are in it to win it, according to God’s perfect prophetic Word. 

We believe in God, thus we must honor His standards — living righteously and being true to His Word. We must abide accordingly, proceeding carefully, following the Biblical prescriptions. And when we do fall (which is often!), we know that there are prescriptions for that too (I John 1:9, for example). But let us not gawk enviously of those people who do not even flinch as they commit sin. Let us not imitate the ways of unbelievers.

Remember this too: Many of the staunchest critics of faith are people who are sinking the fastest in the quicksand of iniquity. Offer them a hand out of that mire, even if they spit on it. So Christian, stay on the path. Don’t detour over to the bleachers in the Stadium of Sinfulness; don’t gawk at hell-o-vision, visiting the wrong sites on the World Wide Wicked Web he weaved. Stay out of the cesspool of the “adult” world; forego alcohol, and drugs, bad language, evil desires. Don’t dress alluringly like the heathens do, but be bold and intractably bound the will of God, seeking His pure and holy directions. And I hope I’ll see you along the Way, either in this world or the next.