13 The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil. I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverse mouth.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil - As it is impossible to hate evil without loving good; and as hatred to evil will lead a man to abandon the evil way; and love to goodness will lead him to do what is right in the sight of God, under the influence of that Spirit which has given the hatred to evil, and inspired the love of goodness: hence this implies the sum and substance of true religion, which is here termed the fear of the Lord.
The fear of the LORD [is] to hate (e) evil: pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the perverse mouth, do I hate.
(e) So that he who does not hate evil, does not fear God.
The fear of the Lord is to hate evil,.... All evil in general, evil thoughts, evil words, evil actions, evil company, evil worship, and evil doctrines; and by "the fear of the Lord", which shows itself in an hatred of evil, because of the loathsome nature of it, and being contrary to God and his will, and as it appears in the glass of the law, and especially in the glass of pardoning love, is meant not the fear of his judgments and wrath, or a distrust of his grace and goodness, much less an hypocritical fear, or a mere show of devotion; but a reverential affection for him, which is peculiar to children; a filial, godly fear, which is consistent with strong faith, great joy, and true courage; and is opposite to pride and self-confidence, and is accompanied with real holiness; it takes its rise from the grace of God, and is greatly increased and promoted by the discoveries of his love and goodness: this is brought into the account and description of wisdom, to distinguish it from carnal wisdom; to commend wisdom from its holiness; for this the beginning of wisdom, yea, wisdom itself, Job 28:28;
pride and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate; these are the particulars of evil, which Wisdom, or Christ, declares his hatred of. "Pride", which appears in men in thinking too highly of themselves, in speaking too well of themselves, in despising others, in setting up and trusting to their own righteousness for salvation, and in crying up the purity and power of human nature; this is very contrary to the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus, and must be hateful to him: "arrogancy" differs little from pride, and the two words in the Hebrew are very much the same, very little differ; it is an ascribing that to a man's self which does not belong to him, whether in things natural, civil, or spiritual; when men attribute their justification and salvation to their own works, it is arrogancy, and must be hateful to Christ; who been at so much pains and expense to bring in everlasting righteousness, and work out salvation for men: it is the height of arrogancy in a man to conceit he a power to regenerate, renew, and convert himself, and, with the haughty Arminian, Grevinchovius, to say, he has made himself to differ from others; this must be hateful to Christ, by whose Spirit and grace this only is done: and it is a piece of arrogancy when men ascribe all the good works done by them to their own power, when without Christ they can do nothing; which therefore must be displeasing to him. "The evil way", as Aben Ezra observes, is an evil custom and course of sinning; a man's own way, which he chooses and delights in, and which leads to destruction: "and the froward mouth" is the mouth that speaks perverse things; things contrary to a man's own heart, contrary to truth, to the rule of the divine word, to the Gospel, to Christ and his people, and to all men; which must be hateful and abominable to him who is truth itself.
For such is the effect of the fear of God, by which hatred to evil preserves from it.
froward mouth--or, "speech" (Proverbs 2:12; Proverbs 6:14).
Far remote is the idea that 13a is dependent on אמצא (I acquire) (Lwenstein, Bertheau). With this verse begins a new series of thoughts raising themselves on the basis of the fundamental clause 13a. Wisdom says what she hates, and why she hates it:
13 "The fear of Jahve is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogancy, and an evil way
And a deceitful mouth, do I hate."
If the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 1:7), then wisdom, personally considered, stands before all else that is to be said of her in a relation of homage or reverence toward God corresponding to the fear of God on the part of man; and if, as the premiss 13a shows, the fear of God has as its reverse side the hatred of evil, then there arises what Wisdom says in שׂנאתי (I hate) of herself. Instead of the n. actionis שׂנאת (hatred), formed in the same way with יראת, which, admitting the article, becomes a substantive, the author uses, in order that he might designate the predicate as such (Hitzig), rather the n. actionis שׂנאת as מלאת, Jeremiah 29:10. קראת, Judges 8:1, is equivalent to שׂנאת like יבּשׁת, the becoming dry, יכלת, the being able; cf. (Arab.) shanat, hating, malât, well-being, ḳarât, reading (Fl.). The evil which Wisdom hates is now particularized as, Proverbs 6:16-19, the evil which Jahve hates. The virtue of all virtues is humility; therefore Wisdom hates, above all, self-exaltation in all its forms. The paronomasia גּאה וגאון (pride and haughtiness) expresses the idea in the whole of its contents and compass (cf. Isaiah 15:6; Isaiah 3:1, and above at Proverbs 1:27). גּאה (from גּאה, the nominal form), that which is lofty = pride, stands with גּאון, as Job 4:10, גבהּ, that which is high = arrogance. There follows the viam mali, representing the sins of walk, i.e., of conduct, and os fullax (vid., at Proverbs 2:12), the sins of the mouth. Hitzig rightly rejects the interpunctuation רע, and prefers רע. In consequence of this Dech (Tiphcha init.), וּפי תהפּכת have in Codd. and good editions the servants Asla and Illuj (vid., Baer's Torath Emeth, p. 11); Aben-Ezra and Moses Kimchi consider the Asla erroneously as disjunctive, and explain וּפי by et os = axioma meum, but Asla is conjunctive, and has after it the ת raphatum.
*More commentary available at chapter level.