Proverbs 5:21

For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(21) For the ways of man . . .—Another reason for avoiding sin is the certainty of detection by the Judge, whose “eyes run to and fro through the whole earth” (2Chronicles 16:9), comp. Psalm 11:4.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:15-23 Lawful marriage is a means God has appointed to keep from these destructive vices. But we are not properly united, except as we attend to God's word, seeking his direction and blessing, and acting with affection. Ever remember, that though secret sins may escape the eyes of our fellow-creatures, yet a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, who not only sees, but ponders all his goings. Those who are so foolish as to choose the way of sin, are justly left of God to themselves, to go on in the way to destruction.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

One more warning. The sin is not against man, nor dependent on man's detection only. The secret sin is open before the eyes of Yahweh. In the balance of His righteous judgment are weighed all human acts.

Pondereth - Note the recurrence of the word used of the harlot herself (see Proverbs 1:6 note): she ponders not, God does.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

21. The reason, God's eye is on you,

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Before the eyes of the Lord; God sees all thy filthy actions, though done with all possible cunning and secrecy. He taketh an exact account of all their doings, that he may recompense them according to the kinds, degrees, numbers, and aggravations of all their unchaste actions.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the Lord,.... Both good and bad; the ways of a chaste and virtuous man, who cleaves to his own wife and shuns the harlot, which are approved of by the Lord; and the ways of a lewd man, all the impure thoughts, desires, and contrivances of his mind, and all the steps he takes to commit lewdness, and all the filthy actions he is guilty of, these are all open and naked to the omniscient God: the adulterer seeks the twilight, and flatters himself with secrecy, not considering that the eye of God is upon him; there are many, that, were their filthy actions known to men, they would be ashamed of them; and this consideration greatly deters from them, and puts them upon secret ways of committing them; much more should the consideration of the divine omniscience weigh with them to avoid them; which is the argument here made use of;

and he pondereth all his goings; he not only sees them, but takes notice of them, and observes them, and ponders them in his mind, and lays them up there, in order to bring to an account for them hereafter; yea, he weighs them in the balance of justice, and will proportion the punishment unto them, according to the rules of it; when it must go ill with those that follow such lewd practices, Hebrews 13:4.

Geneva Study Bible

For the ways of man are before the {m} eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

(m) He declares that unless a man joins to his wife both in heart and in outward conversation, he will not escape the judgments of God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. For; as an additional reason for avoiding sin.

pondereth] The primary sense of the Heb. word, which is the same as in Proverbs 5:6 of this chapter, is adhered to in R.V. text: he maketh level, i.e. however intricate and tortuous man makes them, before God’s all-seeing eye they lie spread out like a map (Hebrews 4:13). εἰς δὲ πάσας τὰς τροχιὰς αὐτοῦ σκοπεύει, LXX. It may mean, however, that God makes man’s ways level, in the sense of making them lead swiftly and surely to their appointed end (Proverbs 5:22-23). Others take it in contrast with the next verse: God makes a man’s ways level (right), but sin involves him in difficulties from which he cannot extricate himself. The derived sense pondereth (or, weigheth carefully, R.V. marg.) comes from holding the balances in weighing till the two scales are even, and so making level. Comp. Job 31:4.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 21. - For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord. The obvious meaning here is that as "the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good" (Proverbs 15:3), there is no possibility of any act of immorality escaping God's notice. The consciousness of this fact is to be the restraining motive, inasmuch as he who sees will also punish every transgression. The great truth acknowledged here is the omniscience of God, a truth which is borne witness to in almost identical language in Job: "For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings" (Job 34:21; cf. 24:23 and Job 31:4). So Hanani the seer says to Asa King of Judah, "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth" (2 Chronicles 16:9); and Jehovah says, in Jeremiah, "For mine eyes are upon all their ways, they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes" (Jeremiah 16:17; cf. 32:29); and again, in Hosea, "They are before my face" (Hosea 7:2), and the same truth is re-echoed in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in all probability gathered from our passage, "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do" (Hebrews 4:13). The ways of man; i.e. the conduct of any individual man or woman; ish, "man," being used generically. Are before the eyes of the Lord; i.e. are an object on which Jehovah fixes his gaze and scrutiny. And he pondereth all his goings. The word "he pondereth" is in the original m'phalles, the piel participle of philles, piel of the unused kal, palas, and appears to be properly rendered in the Authorized Version. This verb, however, has various meanings:

(1) to make level, or prepare, as in Proverbs 4:26 and Proverbs 5:6;

(2) to weigh, or consider accurately, in which sense it is used here.

So Gesenius, Lee, Buxtorf, and Davidson. Jehovah not only sees, but weighs all that a man does, wheresoever he be, and will apportion rewards and punishments according to a man's actions (Patrick). The German commentators, Delitzsch and Zockler, however, look upon the word as indicating the overruling providence of God, just as the former part of the verse refers to his omniscience, and render, "he marketh out," in the sense that the Lord makes it possible for a man to walk in the way of uprightness and purity. There is nothing inherently objectionable in this view, since experience shows that the world is regulated by the Divine government, but it loses sight to some extent of the truth upon which the teacher appears to be insisting, which is that evil actions are visited with Divine retribution. Proverbs 5:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

That the intercourse of the sexes out of the married relationship is the commencement of the ruin of a fool is now proved.

21 For the ways of every one are before the eyes of Jahve,

     And all his paths He marketh out.

22 His own sins lay hold of him, the evil-doer,

     And in the bands of his sins is he held fast.

23 He dies for the want of correction,

     And in the fulness of his folly he staggers to ruin.

It is unnecessary to interpret נכח as an adverbial accusative: straight before Jahve's eyes; it may be the nominative of the predicate; the ways of man (for אישׁ is here an individual, whether man or woman) are an object (properly, fixing) of the eyes of Jahve. With this the thought would suitably connect itself: et onmes orbitas ejus ad amussim examinat; but פּלּס, as the denom. of פּלס, Psalm 58:3, is not connected with all the places where the verb is united with the obj. of the way, and Psalm 78:50 shows that it has there the meaning to break though, to open a way (from פל, to split, cf. Talmudic מפלּשׁ, opened, accessible, from פלשׁ, Syriac pelaa, perfodere, fodiendo viam, aditum sibi aperire). The opening of the way is here not, as at Isaiah 26:7, conceived of as the setting aside of the hindrances in the way of him who walks, but generally as making walking in the way possible: man can take no step in any direction without God; and that not only does not exempt him from moral responsibility, but the consciousness of this is rather for the first time rightly quickened by the consciousness of being encompassed on every side by the knowledge and the power of God. The dissuasion of Proverbs 5:20 is thus in Proverbs 5:21 grounded in the fact, that man at every stage and step of his journey is observed and encompassed by God: it is impossible for him to escape from the knowledge of God or from dependence on Him. Thus opening all the paths of man, He has also appointed to the way of sin the punishment with which it corrects itself: "his sins lay hold of him, the evil-doer." The suffix יו does not refer to אישׁ of Proverbs 5:21, where every one without exception and without distinction is meant, but it relates to the obj. following, the evil-doer, namely, as the explanatory permutative annexed to the "him" according to the scheme, Exodus 2:6; the permutative is distinguished from the apposition by this, that the latter is a forethought explanation which heightens the understanding of the subject, while the former is an explanation afterwards brought in which guards against a misunderstanding. The same construction, Proverbs 14:13, belonging to the syntaxis ornata in the old Hebrew, has become common in the Aramaic and in the modern Hebrew. Instead of ילכּדוּהוּ (Proverbs 5:22), the poet uses poetically ילכּדנו; the interposed נ may belong to the emphatic ground-form ילכּדוּן, but is epenthetic if one compares forms such as קבנו (R. קב), Numbers 23:13 (cf. p. 73). The חמּאתו governed by חבלי, laquei (חבלי, tormina), is either gen. exeg.: bands which consist in his sin, or gen. subj.: bands which his sin unites, or better, gen. possess.: bands which his sin brings with it. By these bands he will be held fast, and so will die: he (הוּא referring to the person described) will die in insubordination (Symm. δι ̓ ἀπαιδευσίαν), or better, since אין and רב are placed in contrast: in want of correction. With the ישׁגּה (Proverbs 5:23), repeated purposely from Proverbs 5:20, there is connected the idea of the overthrow which is certain to overtake the infatuated man. In Proverbs 5:20 the sense of moral error began already to connect itself with this verb. אוּלת is the right name of unrestrained lust of the flesh. אולת is connected with אוּל, the belly; אול, Arab. âl, to draw together, to condense, to thicken (Isaiah, p. 424). Dummheit (stupidity) and the Old-Norse dumba, darkness, are in their roots related to each other. Also in the Semitic the words for blackness and darkness are derived from roots meaning condensation. אויל is the mind made thick, darkened, and become like crude matter.