Proverbs 30:18 - Meaning and Application

Here we have an account of four things that are beyond our ability to fully understand. The first three are natural things, used to help us picture the last one. We cannot trace an eagle in the sky. We cannot tell by footprints or scent where it has gone, as we can with a beast on the ground. We also cannot fully explain how quickly it flies and disappears from view.

We cannot trace a serpent on a rock. In sand, we may follow its path, but on hard rock there is no track to see. We cannot fully describe how a snake, with no feet, can quickly creep to the top of a rock. We also cannot trace a ship in the middle of the sea. A great sea creature, like the leviathan, leaves a shining wake behind it, as if the deep were gray with age (Job 41:32), but a ship leaves no mark. At times it is so tossed by the waves that one wonders how it survives and reaches its goal. The world of nature is full of wonders, amazing things God does that we cannot fully explain.

The fourth thing is a mystery of sin, and it is even harder to understand than the others. It belongs to the deep things of Satan, that hidden deceit and desperate evil in the human heart that no one can fully know (Jeremiah 17:9). This includes the wicked skill of a corrupt man who tries to seduce a young woman and persuade her to give in to his sinful lust. Long ago, a shameless poet even wrote a whole book about this so-called art of love. By flattering words, promises of marriage, pledges of secrecy, and hopes of reward, many unsuspecting young women are led to trade away their purity, honor, peace, and soul to a false friend. The more skillfully temptation is handled, the more watchful and firm every pure heart should be against it.

It also includes the wicked skill of a corrupt woman who hides her sin, especially from her husband, whom she has betrayed. Her secret dealings with sinful companions are so carefully disguised that she seems as impossible to track as an eagle in the air. She goes after forbidden pleasure, like Adam in his transgression, and then wipes her mouth so nothing shows, and with boldness says, “I have done no wrong.” To the world, she denies the fact and may even be ready to swear she is as modest as any woman and never did what she is suspected of. These are works of darkness, carefully kept from the light. To her own conscience, if she still has one, she denies the guilt too, and will not admit that her great wickedness is wickedness at all, but only harmless enjoyment. Many people ruin their souls this way, by calling evil good and pushing away their convictions with self-justification.

Here also is an account of four things that cannot be endured, four kinds of people who are a great trouble wherever they live and in whatever company they keep. The earth is disturbed by them and seems to groan under their burden. They are all much alike in this way. A servant, when he is raised to power, can become the most proud and overbearing person of all. Tobiah the Ammonite servant was such a man (Nehemiah 2:10). A fool, meaning a rude, loud, immoral man, can also become unbearable when he grows rich and sits at the table with others, because he fills the company with foolish talk and insults. An unpleasant, sharp-tempered woman, when she gets a husband, often becomes even more scornful and spiteful than before. It is a sad thing when marriage, which should soften a person, has the opposite effect. A gracious woman, by contrast, grows even more kind and pleasant after marriage.

There is also the old maidservant who has won her mistress over by pleasing her, and has come to expect that her mistress will leave everything to her, almost as if she were the heir. Such a person too often becomes proud and mean, and thinks her share is never enough. She feels wronged if anything is left to someone else. So those whom God’s providence has lifted from low beginnings must carefully watch against the sin that most easily catches them, pride and haughtiness. In them, more than in others, that sin is especially unbearable and inexcusable. They should humble themselves by remembering the rock from which they were cut.