http://www.humanreligions.info/proverbs_6.html
By Vexen Crabtree 2012
Jewish Tanakh
Title: Mishlei (Book of Truth) (Proverbs)
Section: Ketuvim - Sifrei Emet
Prev: Tehillim (Book of Truth) (Psalms)
Next: Iyyōbh (Book of Truth) (Job)
Protestant Bibles
Title: Proverbs
Section: Wisdom Books
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Next: Ecclesiastes
Catholic Bible
Title: Proverbs
Section: Wisdom
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Next: Ecclesiastes
Eastern Orthodox Bibles
Title: Proverbs
Section: Wisdom
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Next: Ecclesiastes
Chapters in Proverbs:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31
Total verses: 915
Christians were once adamant that the Book of Proverbs was composed by Solomon1, but, the various parts of Proverbs date from such a range of dates, and, other historical evidence has led academics almost universally away from the belief that Solomon was the author. The book of proverbs is a collection of sayings, stories and poems written by multiple authors over a period of hundreds of years1,2, reaching its finished editions around the 5th century BCE1
The first nine chapters are philosophical in nature1, and the last twelve chapters are a long series of sayings drawn from Jewish and Mesopotamian culture. Some of the proverbs are moral, but many are simply revengeful, and most simply relate to the local circumstances of the Jewish people at the time they were written2.
BibleSummary.Info: A little slumber, and poverty will come like a bandit. A scoundrel sows discord. My son, a man who commits adultery destroys himself..3
Vexen Crabtree: Some life advice. Although very short, Proverbs is highly contradictory, and teaches dubious morals
Proverbs 6 makes little sense. It argues that to promise your word is to be trapped and that a good way out of this is to engage in mutual sleep deprivation between you and your friend. Ant-watching is good for lazy people despite the fact that ants organize mostly into war-waging tribes and food-stealing crime syndicates. It erroneously states that ants don't have leaders. It contradicts several verses from Matthew and Luke in a denial of universalism. In a list of 7 things God detests, Proverbs 6 manages to list the same thing twice, and, contradicts several of the sayings of Jesus. It manages to argue against adultery on the grounds of avoiding the consequences, rather than on the grounds of morality. Proverbs 6 makes sense when it warns that lazy people will become economically poor.| KJV | YLT | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, | My son! if thou hast been surety for thy friend, Hast stricken for a stranger thy hand, | If you have trapped yourself "with your word" - i.e. by making a promise, agreeing to a deal, then you are "snared". To get out of it, you have to not sleep, strengthen your friend, and prevent your neighbour from sleeping too. This way, you can escape, like a roe or a bird from the hand of a carer! People can run themselves in circles trying to work out what this means: its obscurity means that people tend to read into it (exegesis) what they already believe correct behaviour should be. |
| 2 | Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth. | Hast been snared with sayings of thy mouth, Hast been captured with sayings of thy mouth, | |
| 3 | Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend. | Do this now, my son, and be delivered, For thou hast come into the hand of thy friend. Go, trample on thyself, and strengthen thy friend, | |
| 4 | Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. | Give not sleep to thine eyes, And slumber to thine eyelids, | |
| 5 | Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. | Be delivered as a roe from the hand, And as a bird from the hand of a fowler. |
| KJV | YLT | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: | Go unto the ant, O slothful one, See her ways and be wise; | In other words... lazy people should be working together with others, gathering food wherever they find it (including stealing from people's kitchens), and otherwise be patrolling their grounds and waging war with neighbouring tribes. This type of horrible cabal is otherwise known as a crime syndicate! Lazy people should, says Proverbs 6:6, live in a structured dictatorship where slaves and soldiers have clearly defined roles, and all work for the Queen. This is against other verses in the NT that say women shouldn't have power over men! |
| 7 | Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, | Which hath not captain, overseer, and ruler, | |
| 8 | Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. | She doth prepare in summer her bread, She hath gathered in harvest her food. |
This dubious teaching is followed by a basic mistake; for Proverbs 6:7-8 continues to talk about the ant, saying "It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest". The gatherer of food is the worker ant, which certainly does have a commander and overseer: The Queen ant! This ant commands the colony alone, using chemical signals, and does not put up with competition. If you don't think the Queen's control is direct enough, then, you must at least admit that all the worker ants follow a strict instinct which is set in stone in the Queen's DNA and expressed by the worker ants. The queen, directly or indirectly, commands the instincts and behaviour of the hive!
| KJV | YLT | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? | Till when, O slothful one, dost thou lie? When dost thou arise from thy sleep? | In a sea of nonsense, the author of Proverbs 6 finally hits upon something with which it is hard to disagree. |
| 10 | Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: | A little sleep, a little slumber, A little clasping of the hands to rest, | |
| 11 | So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man. | And thy poverty hath come as a traveller, And thy want as an armed man. |
See:
Within the Context of Universalism:
No Universalism: Matt 20:1-16 presents a God that will only reward some people, and unequally so. Proverbs 6:12-15 says that a person devoted to mischief has no chance of healing. Luke 17:20-32 is the same; those who look back at the unsaved will themselves be punished, like Lot's wife (Genesis 19:23-26) and Revelation 20:10 shows us that some beings will be punished forever. Therefore, there are unsaved people even at the time when God's Kingdom is finally victorious. Likewise the parable found in Matthew 25:1-12 indicates that those who do not prepare for the big event will find that "the door is shut" and God no longer knows them. St Paul teaches the same: If you worship the wrong god, then, you cannot enter heaven, and nor can "whoremongers, unclean persons, nor covetous men" (Ephesians 5:5). Hence, the Bible presents a non-Universalist theology and many Christian organisations have taught a very strict doctrine of select salvation.
Universalism: The Bible wasn't written with any particular theology of salvation in mind. There are plenty of verses and stories where salvation is universal and not selective. Universalism has long been a feature of Christianity. The parable of the Vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16 and of the Lost Sheep in Matthew 12:11; Matthew 18:11-14 and Luke 15:4-7, all portray a God who patiently and tirelessly works until every individual is saved. Romans 2:4 states that God intends on saving everyone - "God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance" [NIV]. As God is all-powerful and perfect, God's intentions are of course made real. Also, Philemon 2:10 says that all will be converted to Christianity (although doesn't say they're all saved) but Luke 3:5 says that even the crooked will be made straight. The great Christian Origen in the third century preached universalism during centuries when Christianity was more varied and interesting. He held in particular that even Satan would be saved eventually. He was condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 543CE but his 'heresy' of Universalism lived on. The Anabaptists held this view too.
Contradictory Ideas: The authors of the Bible did not have a systematic system worked-out; they themselves had different ideas about what was required for salvation and when the wrote the stories, they included their own ideas in them. Since the very beginnings, some Christians have gone one way (the nice way - universalism!), some go the other way (selective salvation).
God detests 7 things: those with haughty eyes, liars, those who shed innocent blood, evil schemers, evil-doers, liars, those who cause conflict in the community. (You may notice that 'liars' appeared twice in the list; I'm not sure the author of Proverbs 6 had his head screwed on!). God clearly doesn't hate all those who cause conflict in the community: For Jesus himself said in Matthew 10:34-37 that he comes "to set a man at variance against his father, and daughter against her mother" and more. In Luke 12:51-53 Jesus says a similar thing, saying he is on Earth to bring not peace, but division, dividing up families.