Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb20111009.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Proverbs: Motivating Teens And Adults To Align With God's Fixed Moral Order
Part III: Solomon's Proverbs Reflecting God's Fixed Moral Order For Blessing, Proverbs 10:1-22:16
A. Contrasting Wise, Righteous Living With Foolish, Wicked Living, Proverbs 10:1-15:33
6. Studying Proverbs 11:1-9
  1. Introduction
    1. Solomon's actual proverbs hop from one subject to another, likely "to force readers to grapple with and meditate on the thoughts of one verse before moving on to the next," Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 925.
    2. We the focus on each one to draw out its deeper insight that Proverbs 1:5-6 implies exists (as follows):
  2. Studying Proverbs 11:1-9.
    1. Proverbs 11:1 claims that dishonest balances are an abomination to the Lord, but a perfect (shelemah; B. D. B., A Heb. and Eng. Lex. of the O. T., p. 1023-1024) weight stone (eben, Ibid., Kittel, p. 1167; Ibid., B. D. B., p. 6) is His delight. "Archaeologists have found inscribed weights which were both over and under the average weight standard" ( Z. P. E. B., vol. One, p. 455). Thus, dishonest business venders used heavier sets of weights in balances to buy from suppliers and lighter sets to sell to customers to boost their profits in cheating both their suppliers and customers, Ibid. God hates such dealings, and will judge it!
    2. Proverbs 11:2 uses a play on words to assert that with qadon ("presumptuousness," Ibid., Kittel; Ibid., B. D. B., p. 268) comes qalon ("disgrace," Ibid., B. D. B., p. 885-886), but with the modest (senu'im, Ibid., Kittel; Ibid., B. D. B., p. 857) comes wisdom (hakmah, Ibid., Kittel; Ibid., B. K. C., O. T., p. 928) Presumptuousness via pride produces a lack of wisdom that yields disgrace while modesty via humility produces wisdom that yields honor. Humility and modesty bring one honor where pride that yields presumptuousness brings one disgrace, a truth illustrated by Jesus in Luke 14:8-11 NIV.
    3. Proverbs 11:3 claims the integrity of the upright guides them (ESV, NIV, KJV), but the crooked dealings (selep, Ibid., B. D. B., p. 701) of the treacherous (bogedim , Ibid., Kittel; Ibid., B. D. B., p. 93) will destroy them. Integrity guides one away from ruinous pitfalls where crookedness misleads him right into disaster.
    4. Proverbs 11:4 teaches that riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. One is protected from the wrath of overseers like kings and the Lord if he chooses to be righteous above getting rich by sin that takes unjust advantage of others, for such sin produces wrath from men and God.
    5. Proverbs 11:5 asserts that the righteousness of the blameless makes his way straight, i. e., smoothed out of disastrous stumbling blocks, but that the wicked falls by his own wickedness. Righteousness gives one an inherent advantage of attaining a safe course in life's paths where wickedness by its own crookedness leaves one inevitably prone to fall into disaster since it leads him into calamitous pitfalls in his experience.
    6. Proverbs 11:6 claims the righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the treacherous (bogedim of Prov. 11:3 above; Ibid., Kittel) are taken captive by lusts. (ESV) In Bible times, righteousness kept one from rule by his lusts that inhibited overindulgence and thus avoided huge debts that forced him into slavery to pay off the debts. (Ex. 22:2-3 NIV) Though we do not have physical slavery in our land now, this proverb applies to financial enslavement to debtors caused by lustful overindulgence through overspending.
    7. Proverbs 11:7 teaches that when a wicked man dies, what he wishes to occur (tiqvah as in Prov. 10:28b; Ibid., B. D. B., p. 876) will perish, and even his expected hope (tohelet as in Prov. 10:28a; Ibid., p. 404) based on what his manly vigor or wealth influences to occur (on, Ibid., p. 20) will perish. Wickedness causes even the most expected hope of a sinner not to be upheld by others, so his hope dies when he dies.
    8. Proverbs 11:8 claims the righteous are delivered from distress, but the wicked goes on to take his place in that distress (tahtiw, Ibid., p. 1065-1066). This is illustrated in the life of Haman in Esther 3-7: the gallows he unjustly had built for upright Mordecai were used to hang him instead. (Ibid., B. K. C., O. T.)
    9. Proverbs 11:9 NIV, ESV teaches the godless man destroys his neighbor with his words, but the righteous through knowledge are delivered. Applied today, one protects himself by his uprightness from even an evil mass news media that slanders: his righteousness leads him to learn the facts he needs to protect his reputation before the media, but the wicked are devastated by an evil media's slander as the wicked lack the wisdom that leads them to be ignorant of the knowledge needed to guard themselves from the slander!
Lesson Application: May we align with God's fixed moral order in each of these realms for blessing.