The fear of the Lord is to hate evil
Proverbs 8:13 To show our love of the Lord and to respect His ways, we need to hate evil.
“The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate.”
Proverbs 8:13 NASB1995
We’re back to Proverbs again, in a chapter that is unsurprisingly devoted to wisdom, the attribute usually ascribed to King Solomon, who wrote sections of the book.
Verses 1-9 of Chapter 8 comprise an invitation to the reader from God’s Wisdom, personified as a woman. Verses 10-21 (which is the section from which today’s verse arises) is also an invitation from Wisdom, primarily describing her attributes. The last part of the chapter (verses 22-31) are Wisdom’s hymn, in which she describes her origins before the creation of the universe and actually at creation. In the last verses (32-36), Wisdom once again appeals to the reader.
The beginning of this verse — “the fear of the Lord” — is found throughout Scripture. For example, Proverbs 1:7 reads “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction”, Job 28:28 says “And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; And to depart from evil is understanding.’”, Psalms 34:11 invites the reader to ”Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.“ These are just a few of the dozens of times this attribute of a Godly person is stressed in the Bible.
Here, we are told that one way to fear (respect) the Lord is to hate evil. The 19th Century English theologian Charles Ellicott said of this phrase:
Because there can never be any truce between the kingdoms of light and darkness (Matthew 6:24), so if we are the friend of one, we must be the enemy of the other.
Two centuries before Ellicott, English theologian Matthew Poole wrote these words about Proverbs 8:13:
The fear of the Lord; which he had before noted to be the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7).
Is to hate evil; it consists in a careful abstinence from all sin, and that not from carnal or prudential motives, but from a true dislike and hatred of it.
Pride; which he mentions first, as that which is most hateful to God, and most opposite to true wisdom and to the fear of God, which constantly produce humility.
The evil way; all wicked actions, especially sinful custom: and courses.
The froward (perverted) mouth; false doctrines, and bad counsels and deceits.
We can all learn a lot from this one short verse. To show our love of the Lord and to respect His ways, we need to hate evil — exhibiting (in the words of Poole) “careful abstinence from all sin.” That doesn’t mean to hate people, but to hate all acts of evil — pride first and foremost, all sinful acts, and following false doctrine.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Father in Heaven, I thank You that all of Your wisdom dwells in Christ, and that I am one with Him by faith. I pray to you that I embrace the wisdom to choose good and deny evil. May my life grow ever nearer to Him, so that His mind influences my actions, words, and behavior, and others see Christ in me. In Jesus’s name I pray, AMEN.