Proverbs 3:32

For the froward is abomination to the LORD: but his secret is with the righteous.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(32) His secret is with the righteous—i.e., He holds confidential intercourse with them. (Comp. Psalm 25:14, and the reward of love and obedience to Christ, that both Father and Son will “come” unto the believer, and “make their abode with him,” through the indwelling Spirit, John 14:23.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:27-35 Our business is to observe the precepts of Christ, and to copy his example; to do justice, to love mercy, and to beware of covetousness; to be ready for every good work, avoiding needless strife, and bearing evils, if possible, rather than seeking redress by law. It will be found there is little got by striving. Let us not envy prosperous oppressors; far be it from the disciples of Christ to choose any of their ways. These truths may be despised by the covetous and luxurious, but everlasting contempt will be the portion of such scorners, while Divine favour is shown to the humble believer.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The true nature of such success. That which people admire is an abomination to Yahweh. His "secret," i. e., His close, intimate communion as of "friend with friend," is with the righteous.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

32-35. Reasons for the warning.

froward—(Pr 2:15).

secret … righteous—in their communion (Am 3:7).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The froward; or, perverse, who walketh in crooked or sinful paths, as the oppressor last mentioned; opposed to the upright man, who is called right or straight, as Deu 32:4 Proverbs 29:27. Is abomination to the Lord; God hates him, and therefore sooner or later he must needs be extremely and eternally miserable.

His secret is with the righteous; they are God’s friends and favourites, to whom he familiarly imparts, as men use to do to their friends, his mind and counsels, or his secret favours and comforts, to which other men are strangers. Compare Psalm 25:14 John 15:15 Revelation 2:17.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the froward is abomination to the Lord,.... The perverse man, that pleases not God, and is contrary to all men, as the Jews were; one froward in his words and actions: "who transgresses the law", as the Arabic version renders it; one that acts contrary to the nature, will, and word of God; and such an one is not only abominable in his sight, but an "abomination" itself; it is sin, which is that abominable thing that God hates, that makes him so: and the Targum is,

"for iniquity is abominable before the Lord;''

but his secret is with the righteous: not such who are outwardly so to others, or trust in themselves that they are righteous, or seek for righteousness by their own works; but such who are justified by the righteousness of Christ, which faith receives from him, and in consequence of which a man lives soberly and righteously: with these the "secret" of the Lord is; of his love, grace, and favour, which was from everlasting, and is manifested in regeneration; of his purposes of grace, with respect to election, redemption, calling, and adoption, which is made known in effectual calling; of his covenant, as that he is their covenant God, Christ is their covenant head and Mediator, and that they have an interest in all the grace, blessings, and promises of it; of the Gospel, and the several mysteries of it, which are so to carnal men; of his providences, what he is doing, or what he is about to do, and will do hereafter, Amos 3:7; and of communion and fellowship with him. The phrase denotes friendship and familiarity; God deals with the righteous as a man does with his intimate friend, converses freely with him, and discloses his secrets to him: and the word is rendered "confabulation" by the Targum, Syriac, and Vulgate Latin versions; see Job 29:4.

Geneva Study Bible

For the froward is abomination to the LORD: but his {p} secret is with the righteous.

(p) That is, his covenant and fatherly affection which is hid and secret from the world.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

32. his secret] i.e., as R.V. margin explains, his counsel (Genesis 18:17), or his friendship (Exodus 33:11). Comp. Psalm 25:14 (and note there in this Series); John 15:15.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 32. - This verse gives the reason for the previous warning. The oppressor is here included under the more general term, "the froward." The froward; naloz, hiph. participle from luz, "to bend aside," and hence a perverted or wicked man, one who turns aside from the way of uprightness, a transgressor of the Law (cf. LXX., παράνομος); and so the opposite of "the righteous," y'sharim, "the upright," those who pursue the path of justness, or the straightforward. Abomination (toevah); i.e. an abhorrence, something which, being impure and unclean (cf. LXX., ἀκάθαρτος), is especially abhorrent to Jehovah. In some passages it is connected with idolatry, as in 1 Kings 14:24 and 2 Kings 23:13, but is never used in this sense in the Proverbs, where it occurs about twenty times (see Proverbs 28:9; Proverbs 21:27; Proverbs 11:1, 20, etc.). The passage shows that prosperity and worldly success are not always a true measure of Divine favour. His secret (sodo); Vulgate, sermocinatio. Here sod probably means "familiar intercourse," as in Job 29:4 and Psalm 25:14; and hence the special favour with which Jehovah regards the upright, by revealing to them what he conceals item others, or his friendship (compare what our Lord says in John 15:14, 15). Dathe translates "probis vero est familiaris." Gesenius says sod properly means "a couch," or triclinium on which people recline; but Delitzsch derives it from the root sod, "to be firm," "compressed," and states that it therefore means properly "a being together, or sitting together." The LXX. eontinues the "froward man" (παράνομος) as the subject, and renders, "Every transgressor is impure before God, and does not sit together with (οὐ συνεδριάζει) the just." Proverbs 3:32

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

These exhortations to neighbourly love in the form of warning against whatever is opposed to it, are followed by the warning against fellowship with the loveless:

31 Be not envious toward the man of violence,

     And have no pleasure in all his ways.

32 For an abhorrence to Jahve is the perverse,

     But with the upight is His secret.

The conceptions of jealousy and envy lie in קנּא (derived by Schultens from קנא, Arab. ḳanâ, intensius rubere) inseparable from each other. The lxx, which for תקנא reads תקנה (κτήσῃ), brings the envy into 31b, as if the words here were ואל־תּתחר, as in Psalm 37:1, Psalm 37:7 (there the lxx has μὴ παραζήλου, here μηδὲ ζηλώσῃς). There is no reason for correcting our text in accordance with this (substituting תּתחר for תּבחר as Hitzig does), because בּכל־דּרכיו would be too vague an expression for the object of the envy, while אל־תבחר altogether agrees with it; and the contrary remark, that בּחר בּכּל is fundamentally no בחר, fails since (1) בחר frequently expresses pleasure in anything without the idea of choice, and (2) "have not pleasure in all his ways" is in the Hebrew style equivalent to "in any one of his ways;" Ewald, 323b. He who does "violence to the law" (Zephaniah 3:4) becomes thereby, according to the common course of the world, a person who is feared, whose authority, power, and resources are increased, but one must not therefore envy him, nor on any side take pleasure in his conduct, which in all respects is to be reprobated; for the נלוז, inflexus, tortuosus (vid., Proverbs 2:15), who swerves from the right way and goes in a crooked false way, is an object of Jahve's abhorrence, while, on the contrary, the just, who with a right mind walks in the right way, is Jahve's סוד - an echo of Psalm 25:14. סוד (R. סד, to be firm, compressed) means properly the being pressed together, or sitting together (cf. the Arab. wisâd, wisâdt, a cushion, divan, corresponding in form to the Hebr. יסוד) for the purpose of private communication and conversation (הוּסד), and then partly the confidential intercourse, as here (cf. Job 29:4), partly the private communication, the secret (Amos 3:7). lxx, ἐν δὲ δικαίοις [οὐ] συνεδριάζει. Those who are out of the way, who prefer to the simplicity of right-doing all manner of crooked ways, are contrary to God, and He may have nothing to do with them; but the right-minded He makes partakers of His most intimate intercourse, He deals with them as His friends.