Daily Verse Proverbs 4:23 | Verse of the day image by Youversion | bible.com

[SC Facilitator]

 

[Lori Jane]

Cross References:​

Mt 12:34 | Offspring of vipers! How are you able to say good things when you are evil? For from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Mt 15:19 | For from the heart come evil plans, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, abusive speech.
Mk 7:21 | For from within, from the heart of people, come evil plans, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders,
Lk 6:45 | The good person out of the good treasury of his heart brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasury brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
Ps 68:20 | Our God is a God of deliverances, and to the Yahweh the Lord belong escapes from death.
2 Ki 10:31; Ps 16:11; 68:20; Pr 10:11; Mt 12:34–35; 15:18–19; Mk 7:18–23; Lk 6:45

 

[Lori Jane]

Commentaries:​

4:23 With all vigilance, keep your heart Appropriate speech and the state of the heart are closely associated in vv. 20–24. Restrained speech is a common theme in Wisdom Literature (e.g., 10:19; 16:23; 17:27; 21:23).

life The speech of the wise benefits the speaker and the listener (10:20, 31; 12:18; 15:2, 4; 18:21).


John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Pr 4:23.

Notes for 4:23

48 tn Heb “more than all guarding.” This idiom means “with all vigilance.” The construction uses the preposition מִן (min) to express “above; beyond,” the word “all” and the noun “prison; guard; act of guarding.” The latter is the use here (BDB 1038 s.v. מִשְׁמָר).
49 sn The word תּוֹצְאוֹת (tots’ot, from יָצָא, yatsa’) means “outgoings; extremities; sources.” It is used here for starting points, like a fountainhead, and so the translation “sources” works well.


Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition Notes (Biblical Studies Press, 2006), Pr 4:23.

4:23 Above all else is literally “more than all guarding.” To guard something is to make sure that it does not get away and that it is safe from attack. In Hebrew the heart is the location of knowledge and also the preconscious source of decisions (27:19; Mt 15:18). Your heart is who you are, the “true you” that directs all your thoughts and emotions. You can educate your heart (Pr 24:32)—consciously form and modify a worldview—after which decisions and actions flow from it (16:9, 23; Lk 6:45; Rm 10:10; 2Co 9:7). This education can be worldly, carried out by yourself, or godly, carried out by the Holy Spirit (Pr 2:6; Jr 24:7; Ezk 36:26–27; Ac 16:14; Rm 2:29). The inclination of your heart directs your mortal life and determines whether you enter eternal life (3:22).

David K. Stabnow, “Proverbs,” in CSB Study Bible: Notes, ed. Edwin A. Blum and Trevin Wax (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017), 959.

23. with all diligence—or, “above,” or “more than all,” custody (compare Margin), all that is kept (compare Ez 38:7), because the heart is the depository of all wisdom and the source of whatever affects life and character (Mt 12:35; 15:19).

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 1 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 392.

4:23. The heart (cf. comments on 3:5) should be guarded for out of it (a wellspring) come one’s actions (cf. Luke 6:45). Here the word “heart” means more than mental or emotional capacity; it also encompasses one’s values (cf. Matt. 6:21).

Sid S. Buzzell, “Proverbs,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 914.

 

[Lori Jane]

Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs for Everyone​

PROVERBS 4:1–27
On Discipline

1 Listen to a father’s discipline, sons,
attend in order to know understanding.
2 Because I give you a good grasp;
don’t abandon my teaching.
3 Because I was a son to my father,
tender and the only one to my mother.
4 He taught me and said to me, “Your mind is to take hold of my words;
keep my commands and you’ll live.”

5 Acquire wisdom, acquire understanding;
don’t disregard and don’t divert from the words of my mouth.
6 Don’t abandon her and she’ll guard you;
give yourself to her and she’ll protect you.
7 The first principle of wisdom is, acquire wisdom,
and in all your acquiring, acquire understanding.
8 Exalt her and she’ll elevate you;
she’ll honor you if you embrace her.
9 She’ll give a graceful garland for your head,
she’ll present you with a beautiful diadem.
10 Listen, son, and grasp my words,
and the years of your life will be many.
11 I am teaching you in the way of wisdom,
I am directing you in upright tracks.
12 As you go, your step will not be hindered;
if you run, you won’t stumble.
13 Hold onto discipline, don’t let go,
guard it, because it’s your life.
14 Don’t enter on the path of faithless people,
don’t walk in the way of wrongdoers.
15 Avoid it, don’t pass through it;
turn from it and pass your way.
16 Because they will not sleep if they don’t do evil;
they are robbed of their sleep if they don’t make someone stumble.
17 Because they eat bread that comes from faithlessness
and drink wine that comes from violent acts.
18 But the path of the faithful is like dawn light,
getting more light until the fullness of the day.
19 The way of faithless people is darkness itself;
they don’t know what will make them stumble.

20 Pay attention to my words, son,
turn your ear to what I say.
21 They must not depart from your eyes;
keep them within your mind.
22 Because they are life to the people who find them,
health for a person’s whole body.
23 Above everything that you guard,
protect your mind.
24 Keep away from you crookedness of mouth;
put deviousness of lips far away.
25 Your eyes must turn forward,
your gaze be straight ahead of you.
26 Weigh the track for your foot;
all your ways must be firm.
27 Don’t turn right or left;
keep your foot way from evil.


We were talking about what makes people change. My wife asked me if I had changed over the years, and if so how it had happened. I know I’m mellower than I used to be and find it easier to get up in the morning. Those differences may be partly the result of getting older, but the biggest factor in making me change over the years was dealing with the long years of my first wife’s illness. In effect those were years of discipline, a bit like the discipline people impose on themselves when they do weight training. In my case, the discipline came from outside. I could have refused to accept it; sometimes I did so. But on the whole I submitted myself to learning to lift the weights, and the discipline strengthened my muscles. Maybe it was mostly that imposed discipline that made me mellower, more easygoing.

Proverbs is keen on discipline. It is vital that we impose discipline on ourselves, though Proverbs also makes clear the assumption that life and God provide us with most of our sources of discipline. So this chapter begins with an exhortation to pay heed to the discipline that the father figure offers. While a literal father can impose discipline, a father-teacher cannot do so. The discipline has to be accepted and internalized by the pupil, the disciple. You could say that a disciple is someone who accepts someone’s discipline. The Greek word for “disciple” means more literally a pupil, a learner, which also fits with Proverbs. Learning involves submitting yourself to someone else’s discipline, not “making up your own mind.”

We prefer to make up our own minds, so we need the exhortation to hold onto discipline and not let it go, to guard it, because it’s our life. The teacher in Proverbs has some anxiety about getting his disciples to see the point and live by it. When my students look at the stress on discipline in Proverbs, they ask whether the New Testament speaks in these terms, rather hoping that it might be a feature of the Old Testament that they can see as superseded in Christ. I am amused to be able to point out that Hebrews 12 takes up this motif from Proverbs and emphasizes the way God relates to us like a father in imposing discipline. It quotes from Proverbs 3, then takes up the exhortation from Proverbs 4 about weighing the track for your foot. The Sermon on the Mount implies accepting discipline as a disciple, too.

Linked with the connection between discipleship and discipline is Proverbs’ assumption that learning should be embodied in life as well as embraced in the head. Western education has traditionally dissociated theory and practice; you can get a degree in theology by studying and going to school but without actually doing anything “theological” and without being changed as a person. Proverbs wouldn’t see such study as real education. The course in ethics that my wife is taking involves her in some community service; there was no such requirement when I studied ethics decades ago. How scary it would be if the professor had to certify that her students “knew” something on the basis of how she saw them living or saw them change in their habits as a result of acquiring new knowledge. How scary it would be if the professor had to be an embodiment of ethics and not merely well-informed about the subject.


John Goldingay, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs for Everyone, Old Testament for Everyone (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2014), 19–22.

 

[LeeB]

The heart is the human spirit, the breath of life, our mind and what we really are and while still in this flesh the part of our soul that God created as a shadow image of Himself and the angels, spirit. Our spirit, defiled because of Adam can be transformed and renewed into the image of Christ who was the image of his God.