Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 15:11

Hell and destruction [are] before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?

11. Hell and destruction ] Sheol and Abaddon with “ The grave,” and “ Destruction ” in the marg. R.V. In their preface the Revisers explain that “with a view to obviate inevitable misunderstanding,” they “have left in the historical narratives the rendering (of A.V.) ‘the grave,’ or ‘the pit,’ with a marginal note, ‘Heb. Sheol,’ to indicate that it does not signify the place of burial; while in the poetical writings they have put most commonly ‘Sheol’ in the text, and ‘the grave’ in the margin.”

In like manner, “Abaddon, which has hitherto been known to the English reader of the Bible only from the New Testament (Rev 9:11), has been introduced in three passages (Job 26:6; Pro 15:11; Pro 27:20), where a proper name appeared to be required for giving vividness and point.” Comp. for the thought, Job 26:6; Psa 139:1-16.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Verse 11. Hell and destruction] sheol vaabaddon. Hades, the invisible world, the place of separate spirits till the resurrection: and Abaddon, the place of torment; are ever under the eye and control of the Lord.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Destruction; put for the place of destruction, by a usual metonymy; the place and state of the damned, of which men know nothing but by Divine revelation.

The hearts; whose thoughts and affections, though they lie deep, discover themselves by outward signs and actions.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

11. Hell (Ps16:10).

destructionor,”Abaddon,” the place of the destroyer. All the unseen worldis open to God, much more men’s hearts.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Hell and destruction [are] before the Lord,…. Or “the grave” a, which is the pit of destruction; where bodies being put, putrefy, and are destroyed by worms: this is known by the Lord, even the grave of everyone from the beginning; the graves of Adam, Abel, Abraham; he knows where their dust lies, and will raise it up again at the last day. Hades, or the invisible state of the departed, as the Septuagint has it, is manifest before him; he knows where departed spirits are; what their condition and employment be; and so the place and state of the damned, known by the name of “hell”; and may be called “destruction”, where soul and body are destroyed by the Lord with an everlasting destruction; and is the destruction which the broad way of sin leads unto. Now though we know not where this place is, who are there, and what the torments endured in it; yet all is before the Lord, and known to him: “tophet” is ordained of old; everlasting fire is prepared by the Lord for devils and wicked men; see Job 26:6;

how much more then the hearts of the children of men? which, though desperately wicked, are known by him; who is the searcher of the hearts and the trier of the reins of the children of men: he to whom hell is naked, and can look into that outer darkness, the blackness of darkness, can look into a man’s heart, a second hell, in which all manner of wickedness is, and observe it all; he needs no testimony of man; he knows what is in man, all his secret thoughts, wicked purposes, designs, and devices; see Jer 17:9.

a “sepulchrum”, Munster, Piscator, Mercerus, so Ben Melech.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

      11 Hell and destruction are before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?

      This confirms what was said (v. 3) concerning God’s omnipresence, in order to his judging of evil and good. 1. God knows all things, even those things that are hidden from the eyes of all living: Hell and destruction are before the Lord, not only the centre of the earth, and its subterraneous caverns, but the grave, and all the dead bodies which are there buried out of our sight; they are all before the Lord, all under his eye, so that none of them can be lost or be to seek when they are to be raised again. He knows where every man lies buried, even Moses, even those that are buried in the greatest obscurity; nor needs he any monument with a Hic jacet–Here he lies, to direct him. The place of the damned in particular, and all their torments, which are inexpressible, the state of separate souls in general, and all their circumstances, are under God’s eye. The word here used for destruction is Abaddon, which is one of the devil’s names, Rev. ix. 11. That destroyer, though he deceives us, cannot evade or elude the divine cognizance. God examines him whence he comes (Job i. 7), and sees through all his disguises though he is sly, and subtle, and swift, Job xxvi. 6. 2. He knows particularly the hearts of the children of men. If he sees through the depths and wiles of Satan himself, much more can he search men’s hearts, though they be deceitful, since they learned all their fraudulent arts of Satan. God is greater than our hearts, and knows them better than we know them ourselves, and therefore is an infallible Judge of every man’s character, Heb. iv. 13.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Nothing Hidden From God

Verse 11 affirms that as Hell (Sheol) and destruction are ever within the view of the LORD, so also are the thoughts and intent of the hearts of men aver within His view. Psa 139:8; Job 26:6; Amo 9:2; 1Sa 16:7; Psa 44:21.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

CRITICAL NOTES.

Pro. 15:11. Hell and destruction, Shel, and Abaddn, two different names for the world of the departed. Shel is the unseen world in general, Abaddn the place of destruction, i.e., the place where their bodies are destroyed (so Stuart, Zckler, etc.). How much more. Miller translates these particles by because also (see his Comment).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro. 15:11

TWO WORLDS

I. Two worlds out of the reach of the human sensesthe world of departed men and the human soul. Both these mysterious worlds are shut out or shut in from the eye of man by the bolts and bars of his bodily senses. How exceedingly small a portion of the vast universe of God is revealed to the eye of sense! The small globe upon which man finds himself is nearly all that he can possibly know with his bodily vision. Reason may tell him that there is much more, faith may afford him clearer evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1), but over all there is a veil drawn. The vast world, where dwells the great majority of the human racethat unseen home, peopled with the spirits of just men made perfect, and the dwelling-place of the spirits of the unjustare regions entirely beyond the reach of human sight. And there is another world equally out of the reach of his vision. He has never seen the soul of any one of the thousands of his fellow-men with whom he has come in contact. He has never read the heart of his most intimate friend. His own living soul, even that which is himself, has never been apprehended by his bodily senses. He has never touched or looked upon that.

II. But both these invisible worlds are entirely open to the eye of God. The world of spirits and the individual soul of each man are seen by Him as plainly as we see the material world around us, or as we see the bodies of our fellow-creatures. And they are far more fully comprehended by Him than the visible things upon which our eyes rest every day are comprehended by us. For what do we really know of the essential properties of that by which we are surrounded? Is not our very bodily organism a mystery to us? But each soul of each individual man in the body, and each unclothed (2Co. 5:4) spirit in the worlds of the departed is naked and open in the eyes of Him with whom each one has to do (Heb. 4:13) as really and as intimately as if in all the universe there was only one creature of whom the omniscient Creator had to take cognizance.

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS

It is the gross persuasion of some, as if hell and destruction were only things that God did set before us, and that they were not before Him; as if they were things wherewith God did only terrify us, and which should never be. But the wise man telleth us, that they are before the Lord, and that though we know not where hell is and what is done there, yet it is before Gods eyes. And, therefore, though the heart of the children of men be made as deep as hell by hellish devices, yet much more is that manifest to God. The heart of man is more manifest to Him than it is to himself. Wherefore St. Augustine, speaking unto God, saith, Thou wert within, and I was without. For, indeed, God is often within and knoweth what our hearts are, when we ourselves are without and do not know them.Jermin.

This terrible truth these hearts secretly know, and their desperate writhings to shake it off show how much they dislike it. The Romish confessional is one of the most pregnant facts in the history of man. It is a monument and measure of the guilty creatures enmity against God. We have wondered at the blindness and stupidity of our common nature in permitting a man, not more holy than his neighbours, to stand in the place of God to a brothers soul. There is cause for grief, but not ground for surprise. The phenomenon proceeds in the way of natural law. It is the common, well understood process of compounding for the security of the whole, by the voluntary surrender of a part. The confessional is a kind of insurance office where periodical exposure of the heart to a man is the premium paid for fancied impunity in hiding that heart altogether from the deeper scrutiny of the all-seeing God. It is Gods love from the face of Jesus Christ shining into my dark heart that makes my heart open and delight to be His dwelling-place. The eye of the just Avenger I cannot endure to be in this place of sin; but the eye of the compassionate Physician I shall gladly admit into this place of disease.Arnot.

Because also the hearts of the children of men. (See Millers rendering in Critical Notes.) The intimation is God knows hell because He knows men. He knows that hating reproof, we die (Pro. 15:10), and just how fast we die or sink by each act of hating. In other words, he knows how fast sin grows under an administration of justice; and, therefore, how far a given sinner will have gone down, at any date, through his eternal age.Miller.

The verse may denote that the deepest machinations of the prince of hell, and of all his legions of fallen angels, are open to the Lords inspection, and must end in their disappointment and deeper torment; how, then, can man, who is so inferior in sagacity and subtilty, expect to hide his counsels from God, or to prosper in rebellion against Him? There is nothing so deep or secret that can be hid from the eyes of God, much less mans thoughts.Scott.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

(11) Hell and destruction.Hell is here the general name for the unseen world (Hades) beyond the grave, so called, according to one derivation, from its always asking for more victims, and never being satisfied. (Comp. Pro. 27:20.) Destruction (Abaddon) is the lowest hell, corresponding to the abyss of Luk. 8:31; Rev. 9:1; Rev. 9:11; the abode of evil spirits and the lost. (For the thought, comp. Job. 26:6, and Psa. 139:8.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

11. Hell and destruction Sheol and abaddon, the under world, the infernal regions. The Hebrew sheol corresponded somewhat to the Greek hades, which word is generally used for it is the Septuagint. It here denotes the receptacle of departed spirits, conceived of, probably, as a vast subterranean region, dark and invisible to mortal eyes, and invested with more or less of horrible imagery “the dreary regions of the dead.” It was, perhaps, not thought of at first as the abode of the wicked exclusively; nevertheless, it is plain that it came eventually to be associated more particularly with the state of wicked men after death; while to the righteous was assigned a happier sphere, at first probably thought of as a favoured portion of the under world, but in time transferred to the regions above the heavens. Among the Jews, in later times, this was called paradise, Abraham’s bosom, etc. This was regarded as the place where there were “fulness of joy” and “pleasures for evermore.” The point in the proverb is this: As the invisible under world is open and conspicuous to the eyes of Jehovah, how much more, or certainly, the hearts of the children of men. Compare Job 26:6; Job 28:22; Psa 18:12; Psa 55:23; Psa 139:8; Pro 27:20. On the latter clause, see Jer 17:10; Heb 4:3; Rev 9:11.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

v. 11. Hell and destruction are before the Lord, the realm of the dead, the place of eternal perdition, is uncovered before Him; He knows them, though they be hidden from the eyes of men; how much more, then, the hearts of the children of men? Jehovah knows the hearts of all men, they are all uncovered before His eyes, Jer 17:10; Heb 4:13.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Pro 15:11 Hell and destruction [are] before the LORD: how much more then the hearts of the children of men?

Ver. 11. Hell and destruction are before the Lord. ] “Tophet is prepared of old”; and wherever it is, as it skills not curiously to inquire, – below us it seems to be, Rev 14:11 et ubi sit sentient qui curiosius quaerunt a – so it is most certain that “hell is naked before God, and destruction uncovered in his sight.” Job 26:6 We, silly fishes, see one another jerked out of the pond of life by the hand of death; but we see not the frying pan and the fire that they are cast into, that “die in their sins,” and refuse to be reformed. Cast they are into utter darkness. Mat 8:12 In tenebras ex tenebris infeliciter exclusi, infelicius excludendi. b Howbeit this thickest “darkness hideth not from God, but the light shineth as the day”; Psa 139:12 he perfectly knows the state of the dead and the damned. Oh that men knew more of it, and did believe in any measure that eternity of extremity that is there to be endured! Oh that they would be forewarned to flee from this wrath to come! Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end, those quatuor novissima! Deu 32:29 Utinam ubique de Gehenna dissereretur, saith Chrysostom. He that doth but hear of hell, is without any further labour or study taken off from sinful pleasures, saith Nyssen. But if a man had but one glimpse of it, it were enough, saith Bellarmine, to make him not only turn Christian and sober, but anchorite and monk; to live after the strictest rule that can be. But, alas! we cannot get men to think of it till they be plunged headlong into it.

“Esse aliquos manes, &c.

Vel pueri credunt nisi qui nondum aere levantur.”

– Juvenal.

No, though one should come from the dead to testify unto them, they would not be persuaded. Luk 16:31

How much more then the hearts of the children of men. ] Though deep and deceitful, full of turnings and windings, Multae sunt in animo latebrae, multi recessus , saith Cicero, yet God can fathom and find them out. Jer 17:9-10 He searcheth the hearts and reins, which yet are the most remote and abstruse of all the entrails, covered from the eye of the anatomist with fat and flesh, &c. By “hearts and reins” understand thoughts and affections; the reins being the seat of the strongest affection, that which is for generation. Lo, these are pervious and patent to the eyes of God, yea, dissected, quartered, cleft in the backbone – as the apostle’s word, Heb 4:13 signifies – how much more then their evil actions! These cannot possibly be hidden from God’s all-seeing eye, though they dig deep to secure themselves, as those gunpowder traitors; though they throw thereupon wood, stones, and rubbish, all these to God would be but as spectacles to make their sins appear the greater, or as perspectives to multiply them. c

a Pareus, in loc.

b Augustin., Hom. 16.

c Lux altissima coeli occultum nihil esse sinit, latebrasque per omnes intrat. – Claudian.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)