Verse of the day · September 17
Why does Proverbs 3:7 call self-conceit an evil to depart from?
He thought himself wiser than his teachers, and wiser than the Scriptures.
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Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
Proverbs 3:7
What this proverb forbids is a way of going on that acts independently of God. The man who takes it does not trust him, does not acknowledge him, and does not seek to him for help and direction. He does not ask the advice of other men either, nor take it. What he does instead is lean to his own understanding, being conceited and self-sufficient, and wise enough to conduct all the affairs of life by his own discretion.
The same confidence carries into religion, where John Gill has the man wiser than his teachers and wiser even than the Scriptures — wise above that which is written. What pleases him about his wisdom is that it exceeds other people's, and he glories in it as his own acquisition rather than ascribing it to God, to whatever extent it deserves the name of wisdom at all. For the most part, on Gill's judgment, what men glory in and are conceited of is not wisdom but folly; and at least it is their folly to boast of it and be elated with it.
What such a man objects to is the stooping. Those who hold an opinion of their own sufficiency think it below them, and a disparagement to them, to take their measures from religion's rules — and further below them, Matthew Henry writes, to hamper themselves with those rules. There is not a greater enemy to the power of religion, and to the fear of God in the heart, than conceitedness of our own wisdom, so Henry puts the damage in both places at once.
He reads the verse as one subjection to God and his government: fear the Lord as your sovereign Lord and Master, be ruled in every thing by your religion, and be subject to the divine will. It comes in two parts. The humble part is be not wise in thine own eyes. The dutiful part is fear the Lord, and depart from evil — take heed of doing any thing to offend him and to forfeit his care.
So the verse closes by naming an evil to depart from, and Gill's gloss on that clause reads: from the evil of self-confidence and self-conceit, and from all other evil. Conceitedness of our own wisdom, which Henry has as the chief enemy of the fear of God, is named there among the evils that fear removes — by means of that fear, and through the exercise of it, men forsake evil and keep at a distance from it.
Set opposite all of it is the fear of the Lord, which Gill calls true wisdom, and which he says is opposed to pride, high-mindedness and vain conceit. What it takes in, on his account, is reverence of God, faith in him, dependence on him, acknowledgment of him, seeking to him for direction, and carefulness not to offend him. Among them are the very things the first clause described the man not doing — acknowledgment of him, and seeking to him for direction. Where this fear is, there is humility. JFB compress the last two clauses to a phrase: reverentially regarding His law.
To fear the Lord so as to depart from evil is true wisdom and understanding, and those who have it are truly wise, but self-denyingly so, and not wise in their own eyes. For our encouragement thus to live in the fear of God, the next line, Proverbs 3:8, promises that it will be as serviceable even to the outward man as our necessary food: nourishing, health to thy navel, and strengthening, marrow to thy bones. And the rules a man of that opinion thinks it a disparagement to be hampered by are the ones religion teaches — prudence, temperance and sobriety, the calmness and composure of mind, and the good government of the appetites and the passions. They tend very much, Henry writes, not only to the health of the soul but to a good habit of body, without which our other enjoyments in this world are insipid. Envy is the rottenness of the bones and the sorrow of the world dries them, but hope and joy in God are marrow to them.
Some of what the conceited man holds may genuinely deserve the name of wisdom. The quantity was never the question: where the fear of the Lord is not, there is none, let men be ever so conceited. And what the verse names as an evil to depart from is the satisfaction itself — the pleasure he takes in what he does have.
Drawn from Matthew Henry, John Gill and the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentary. How these teachings are made