The desire of the sluggard kills him,
for his hands refuse to labour.
All day long he craves and craves,
but the righteous gives and does not hold back.
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination;
how much more when he brings it with evil intent.
A false witness will perish,
but the word of a man who hears will endure.
A wicked man puts on a bold face,
but the upright gives thought to his ways.
No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel
can avail against the Lord.
The horse is made ready for the day of battle,
but the victory belongs to the Lord.Proverbs 21:25-31
We have another picture of the sluggard in 25 and 26. Here we see that wishing is his substitute for working, or - to put it more colloquially, his wish-bone is where his back-bone should be. A little consideration of these verses will bring their message home disturbingly to us. If there are some things that we never quite get around to doing, much as we might wish to, we had better ask ourselves whether it is because we are basically lazy. Our hearts may be in the right place, but - well, handwork cannot be done by hearts; it needs hands, and this man's hands will not work. He tells himself he must do it, but he pays no attention to the exhortation. For the thought in 27, compare 3, also 15:8. One recalls the scathing indictment of the people of God by Isaiah (1:10ff), and our Lord's terrible condemnation of the Pharisees' hypocrisy in the gospels. In 28, the 'man that heareth' means the man who hears carefully the evidence and repeats it accurately in any particular case that arises, or - more generally - the man whose aim is to know and understand. 'Constantly' in 28b will then have the force of 'unchallenged' or 'enduring'. The metaphor in 29 corresponds to what we mean when we say of some one that he has a 'brass neck'. A bold face (to change the metaphor slightly) may deceive some people some of the time, but it will not deceive all the people all the time. Someone is sure to see through the disguise, and deal with it accordingly. If this be true on the human level, how much truer in relation to God (30): He is much too clever for man to pit his puny strength against Him. Of the last verse of the chapter Kidner says, 'If verse 30 warns us not to fight against the Lord, 31 warns us not to fight without Him. It condemns, not earthly resources, but reliance on them'.