Proverbs 6
After the long, flowing speeches of the early chapters, Proverbs 6 reads more like a folder of separate counsels, each one its own short lesson with its own subject. The chapter does not develop a single argument; it moves briskly from a warning about debt, to a rebuke of laziness, to a sketch of a troublemaker, to a numbered list of what God hates, to a sustained warning against adultery. What holds it together is the voice - a father, leaning in, naming one practical danger after another to a son he is trying to keep whole. Read it the way you would receive hard-won advice from someone who loves you: not as a system, but as a series of warnings, each meant to save you real trouble.3
The first counsel is about money, and it is urgent. The son has become surety for a friend - he has guaranteed someone else's debt, pledged his own resources for another's obligation with a handshake (stricken thy hand) - and the father treats it as an emergency to be escaped at once: deliver thyself… as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler (v. 5). Then comes one of the most memorable images in the book: the sluggard sent to learn from an ant. Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise (v. 6). The ant has no overseer driving her, yet she works, stores, and prepares. The contrast with the sleeper who folds his hands for a little more slumber is meant to sting - and to wake.
From the sluggard the chapter turns to the man of mischief, whose very body broadcasts his deceit - the wink, the shuffling feet, the pointing fingers of someone always signalling and scheming - until the warning gathers into the chapter's most quoted lines: These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him (v. 16), a list that runs from a proud look to he that soweth discord among brethren. Then the longest unit of all: a father's grave warning against the adulteress. He binds the commandment to his son as a lamp… and the law is light (v. 23), a light meant to keep him off a road dressed up to look like life. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? (v. 27). The chapter ends soberly - some choices, it warns, cannot simply be paid back - and the lamp it offers is the mercy of being shown where the dark path leads before the foot is ever set on it.2
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Proverbs 6:1-11Deliver Thyself · Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard
1My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger, 2Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth. 3Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, when thou art come into the hand of thy friend; go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend. 4Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. 5Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. 6Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: 7Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, 8Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. 9How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? 10Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: 11So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.
The chapter opens not with a lofty principle but with a tight practical scrape, and the father's tone is urgent from the first word. My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger (v. 1). To be surety is to guarantee another person's debt - to put your own name and resources on the line for what someone else owes. The phrase stricken thy hand names the gesture that sealed it: a handshake, a public pledge binding you to a stranger's obligation. And the father's diagnosis is blunt: Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth (v. 2). The son is not caught by force but by his own promise - his careless word has become the net around him. Notice the chapter does not call the pledge a sin; it calls it a trap. The danger is not that the son meant to do wrong but that he bound himself, hastily and generously, to a risk he did not understand and could not control. Proverbs is intensely practical here: a good heart and a rash mouth can land you in real ruin. The very next verses will treat the situation like a fire to be escaped - not because kindness is wrong, but because a promise that puts your whole household at the mercy of a stranger's debt is a promise to get out of, fast.1
Having named the snare, the father turns immediately to escape, and the urgency is almost breathless. Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself… go, humble thyself, and make sure thy friend. Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids (vv. 3-4). Every verb is a command to move - do this now, deliver, go, humble thyself - and the counsel is striking for what it asks. The son is told not to defend his pride but to humble himself: to go back to the friend, plead, press, do whatever it honourably takes to be released from the pledge before it ruins him. He is not even to sleep until it is done. Then comes the picture that makes the danger vivid: Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler (v. 5). A deer with the hunter's hand already upon it, a bird in the fowler's grip - these are creatures one breath away from death, and they do not negotiate or delay; they twist free and run. That is the energy the father wants. Some entanglements are not to be managed but fled. The wisdom here is not cynicism about generosity; it is a clear eye for the difference between a kindness you can afford and a chain that will drag you under - and the nerve to break the chain while there is still time.
From the man caught by a rash promise the chapter turns to his opposite number - the man caught by doing nothing at all. Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise (v. 6). The rebuke is delivered with a touch of wit: the lazy man is sent to take lessons from an insect. And the lesson is precise. Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest (vv. 7-8). The ant has no boss. No one stands over her with a whip or a schedule; she is not driven by an overseer or compelled by a ruler. Self-moved, she simply does the work the season demands - gathering in summer what she will need in winter, reading the time and acting before the time runs out. That is the heart of the indictment. The sluggard's problem is not that he lacks supervision; it is that he will not move unless supervised. He has less initiative than a creature you can crush underfoot. And the diligence the ant models is not frantic; it is foresighted - the simple wisdom of doing the necessary thing while the doing is still possible, of preparing in the season of plenty for the season of need. Proverbs holds her up not as a marvel but as a reproach: if an ant can govern her own labour, what is a man's excuse?3
The father lets the sluggard speak - or rather, lets him mumble, half-asleep: Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep (v. 10). It is a perfect portrait of how laziness actually works. The sluggard never decides to ruin his life; he only ever asks for a little more. Just a few more minutes, just one more delay, just this once. The repetition - a little… a little… a little - is the sound of a hundred small postponements, each one harmless on its own, adding up to a wasted season. And the consequence arrives with a chill: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man (v. 11). The images are vivid and slightly menacing. Poverty comes as one that travelleth - steadily, on its way, certain to arrive; and want comes as an armed man - suddenly, overpoweringly, like a robber you cannot resist. The point is that ruin does not announce itself. While the sluggard dozes, telling himself there is still time, his poverty is already on the road, already marching toward him. The folded hands feel like rest; they are in fact an open door. Proverbs is not preaching mere busyness for its own sake. It is warning that the refusal to do the small, timely, necessary thing has a price, and the price comes whether or not we were awake to see it coming.
Proverbs 6:12-19The Worthless Man · Six Things the LORD Hates, Yea Seven
12A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth. 13He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers; 14Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord. 15Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy. 16These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, 19A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
The chapter now sketches a particular kind of bad man, and the portrait is unforgettable because it is drawn entirely in body language. A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth (v. 12). The old word naughty here means worthless - literally a man of belial, a good-for-nothing - and a froward mouth is one that talks crooked, twisting truth into something bent. But what makes the picture vivid is what comes next: He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers (v. 13). Watch this man and you see a body in constant sly motion - the little wink that signals to a confederate, the tap of the feet, the gesture of the fingers. He is always communicating something other than what his words say, always running a hidden channel underneath the surface. It is the picture of a man who cannot be straight even in his gestures, whose whole physical presence is a kind of code. And the source is named in the next breath: Frowardness is in his heart (v. 14). The crooked mouth and the signalling eyes are not the disease; they are the symptoms. What is bent on the outside is bent first within. A man whose heart is twisted will leak that twist through every channel he has - his speech, his glance, even the angle of his hands.
The worthless man's heart does not merely hold crookedness; it manufactures harm. Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord (v. 14). The word deviseth means to plough, to forge, to plot - this is mischief worked out deliberately, the way a craftsman works a trade, and continually, as a settled occupation. But the phrase that lands hardest is the last: he soweth discord. Here is his signature sin, and it is a quiet one. He is a scatterer of seeds - not of fists or knives, but of whispers, suspicions, small poisons dropped between people who were at peace. He sets friend against friend, brother against brother, and often without ever being seen to do it. Proverbs will name this sin again at the climax of the list just ahead, and the repetition is no accident; of all the harms a man can do with his tongue, this one - the breaking of bonds, the wrecking of trust between people - is singled out for special horror. And the chapter does not leave him standing: Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy (v. 15). The man who breaks the peace of others is himself broken - and the doubled word suddenly is fitting. He worked in secret, by slow degrees; his ruin comes all at once, and there is no patching it. The sower of discord reaps a harvest that cannot be undone.
Now the chapter rises to its most famous lines, and it does so with a deliberate literary flourish: These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him (v. 16). This “six… yea, seven” form is a known pattern in Hebrew poetry - a way of saying “here is a full list, and here is the climactic one on top of it.” The number is not meant to be counted pedantically; it signals fullness, and it throws the final item into sharp relief. What follows is a catalogue of what God most despises, and it is striking how it is organised. The list runs down the body, almost head to toe: a proud look (the eyes), a lying tongue (the mouth), hands that shed innocent blood (the hands), an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations (the heart), feet that be swift in running to mischief (the feet) - and then it leaves the body for the realm of relationships: a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren (vv. 17-19). It is a portrait of a whole person given over to evil, every faculty enlisted - eyes, tongue, hands, heart, feet - and then the social wreckage that such a person leaves behind. And it begins, tellingly, with a proud look. The first thing on the list of what God hates is not violence or lying but the haughty eyes of pride - for pride is the root from which the rest of the list grows.
Proverbs 6:20-35The Commandment Is a Lamp · A Warning Against the Adulteress
20My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 21Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. 22When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. 23For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life: 24To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. 25Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids. 26For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. 27Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? 28Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? 29So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent. 30Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; 31But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house. 32But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. 33A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away. 34For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. 35He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.
The final and longest counsel of the chapter opens, as the book so often does, at home: My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother (v. 20). Both parents stand behind this teaching, and the son is told to keep it - to guard it, hold it fast. Then comes a striking pair of images: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck (v. 21). The teaching is not to be filed away on a shelf but worn - fastened to the heart so it touches the inner life, tied about the neck so it is carried everywhere, visible, never set down. And verse 22 personifies this internalised wisdom as a faithful companion who never leaves the son's side: When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. Three times of day, three faithful offices. By day, on the road, it leads - a guide for decisions. By night, asleep and defenceless, it keeps - a guard over the unconscious hours. And in the morning, waking, it talks - the first voice of the new day. This is what it looks like for wisdom to be truly bound to the heart: not an occasional reference consulted in a crisis, but a constant presence, leading, guarding, and conversing with the soul through every hour. The teaching the son carries within becomes the friend who walks with him always.
Now the chapter gives the reason the commandment is worth binding to the heart, in a line of pure radiance: For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life (v. 23). The metaphor is one every reader understands. A lamp does not change the road; it lets you see it. In a world of darkness - where paths fork unseen and pits open without warning - God's commandment is the light that shows the ground in front of your feet. And notice that even reproofs of instruction - correction, the hard word that tells you where you have gone wrong - are folded into the way of life. Correction does not feel like life while it is happening; it feels like a rebuke. But the chapter insists it is part of the lit path, one of the means by which a person is kept walking toward life rather than away from it. This single verse reframes the entire chapter. Everything the father has said - about the rash pledge, the lazy sleep, the worthless man, the things God hates, and now the seductive woman - is not a string of arbitrary prohibitions. It is light on a dark road. The commandment is given not to fence the son in but to let him see, so that his foot does not find the edge of the cliff in the dark. And the immediate use of that lamp is named at once in the next verse: it is given to keep thee from the evil woman - to light up, in time, a path that looks inviting and ends in the dark.
With the lamp lit, the father shows his son exactly what it reveals on this particular road - and he does it with two questions no one can answer wrongly. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? (vv. 27-28). The answer is obvious, and that is the point. Fire held against the chest burns the chest; coals walked upon burn the feet. There is no version of the act without the consequence; the burning is not a punishment added on afterward but the very nature of the thing. So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent (v. 29). The father is not moralising in the abstract; he is stating a law as fixed as the way fire behaves. To betray a marriage is to take fire into the bosom - and the one who does it will be burned, not because God is harsh, but because that is simply what such fire does. The chapter handles the subject with sober clarity rather than spectacle: the danger is named plainly, and named as fire precisely because fire is beautiful and warm and utterly destructive when embraced. The whole point of the lamp in verse 23 was to let the son see this before he reached out his hand. The flame looks inviting in the dark. The light shows what it will cost.3
The father draws a sharp comparison to measure the folly of this sin. Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; but if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold (vv. 30-31). A starving thief is at least understandable; people pity him even as they make him repay. There is a price, but it can be paid - restitution settles the account. But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul (v. 32). The contrast is sobering. The one who breaks faith here has no such excuse - no gnawing hunger drove him, only a desire he refused to govern - and worse, his is a debt that restitution cannot simply settle. He destroyeth his own soul; the damage reaches the self, not merely the purse. A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away (v. 33). That last phrase is the grave heart of it: shall not be wiped away. The thief can repay sevenfold and be done; some wounds, the father warns, do not simply wipe clean. The chapter is unflinching here because love is unflinching - it tells the truth about a road that promises pleasure and delivers a reproach that lingers. And the verses that close the chapter (vv. 34-35) press the point through the figure of the wronged husband's jealousy: this is a fire that, once lit between people, will not simply be bought off. The father's whole aim is mercy: to hold up the lamp early, while the son can still choose the path, so that he never has to learn this in the dark.
Further study
- The Hebrew text of Proverbs 6 with Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and other classical commentators side by side - useful for atsel (vv. 6, 9, the “sluggard”), for toebah (v. 16, the “abomination” the LORD hates), for ner and torah (v. 23, the “lamp” and the “law” that is light), and for the legal background of the surety who pledges his hand for a neighbour (vv. 1-5).
- Proverbs 6 ↔ Matthew 6 · Luke 12 · 1 Peter 2 · John 8 · Psalm 119Intertextual BibleTraces the threads tying Proverbs 6 to the rest of Scripture - the ant's ways “considered” (v. 6) read beside consider the lilies and consider the ravens (Matt. 6:28; Luke 12:24), the lying tongue and false witness God hates (vv. 17-19) set against the One in whom no guile was found (1 Pet. 2:22), and the commandment as a lamp… light (v. 23) echoed in Psalm 119:105 and the light of the world (John 8:12).
- Proverbs 6 - Translators' NotesNET BibleThe NET Bible's detailed footnotes on Proverbs 6 - the ancient practice of standing “surety” and striking the hand on a pledge (vv. 1-5), the habits of the ant and the meaning of the “sluggard” (vv. 6-11), the numbered “six… seven” saying as a graded numerical proverb (vv. 16-19), and the imagery of fire in the bosom in the warning against adultery (vv. 27-29).
Where this echoes in Scripture
Deliver Thyself · Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard
- Proverbs 22:26-27Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts. If thou hast nothing to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?The same warning as verses 1-5 - the danger of pledging your hand for another’s debt.
- Proverbs 24:30-34I went by the field of the slothful... a little sleep, a little slumber... so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth.The sluggard of verses 9-11 drawn again - the same “little sleep” and the same poverty on the march.
- Matthew 6:26-28Behold the fowls of the air... Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.The Lord’s version of verse 6 - the same call to consider a small creature and learn from it.
- Luke 12:24Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap... and God feedeth them.The companion lesson to the ant - the ant teaches diligence; the ravens teach trust.
- 2 Thessalonians 3:10For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.The apostle’s blunt echo of the sluggard’s lesson - the one who will not work must not expect to be fed.
The Worthless Man · Six Things the LORD Hates, Yea Seven
- Proverbs 16:18Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.The first item on the list - <em>a proud look</em> (v. 17) - named as the root that ends in destruction.
- 1 Peter 2:22Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.The lying tongue and false witness God hates (vv. 17, 19) - never once found in Christ.
- James 3:14-16But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts... For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.The sowing of discord (vv. 14, 19) traced to its root - the strife the heart breeds among people.
- Matthew 11:29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.The opposite of the proud look heading the list - the lowliness of the One in whom none of the seven was found.
- Zechariah 8:17And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour... for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.The same divine hatred as verse 16 - the scheming heart against a neighbour named among the things the LORD hates.
The Commandment Is a Lamp · A Warning Against the Adulteress
- Psalm 119:105Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.The same image as verse 23 - God’s word as the lamp that lights the road for the feet.
- John 8:12I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.The lamp and light of verse 23 drawn up into a Person - the Light of the world who gives the light of life.
- Proverbs 5:3-5For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb... her steps take hold on hell.The same warning as verses 24-29 - the flattery that ends in death, drawn earlier in the book.
- Deuteronomy 6:6-8And these words... shall be in thine heart... thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand.The binding of verse 21 - God’s commandment fastened to the heart and carried on the body.
- 1 Corinthians 6:18Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.The apostle’s echo of verse 32 - the sin that, unlike others, wounds the self of the one who commits it.