Proverbs 21:3 — true and false dichotomies (excerpt from God's Wisdom in Proverbs)

by Dan Phillips

In God's Wisdom in Proverbs (still available for 50% off, but not for long), I develop the nature of proverbs at some length, providing what I see as important tools for reading and understanding them. One of the insights that has been immensely helpful to me, and which I unfold at length in pp. 23ff., is the compressed nature of proverbs. I define a proverb as "truth dressed to travel. It is wisdom compressed, compacted, stripped down to its essentials, and ready to go" (24). Specifically, while some proverbs are ideas squeezed down to their memorable essentials, it is valid to see in others a full story summarized in a pithy proverb. We are immensely helped in detecting such proverbs if we accept the canonical ascriptions of authorship, a point I develop briefly in pp. 2-5, and then at great length in Appendix Two (pp. 317-336). This excerpt focuses on Prov. 21:3, which I categorize as an evaluation proverb (explained on pp. 30-31), and comes from pp. 152-153. It begins with my ad hoc translation of the verse, marked as DJP in the book.

Proverbs 21:3—

To do righteousness and justice
is chosen by Yahweh above sacrifice. (DJP)

This proverb may be another example of a narrative being condensed into two lines. Specifically, it could also be a compression of 1 Samuel 15:22–23 into six little Hebrew words.

Clearly, Yahweh is not saying that He utterly negates sacrifice. He is the one who created the sacrificial system of Israel. This verse is not a denigration of sacrifices offered in believing obedience.

The principle behind this proverb should be easy for parents to understand. We always teach our children that they should apologize when they break or spill something, or if they wrong someone. If we are responsible, we also teach our children that it is better still to be more careful and wise, so as not to have to apologize in the first place. In fact, you might say, “To be wise and careful is chosen by parents above apologies.”

This verse, I think, says the same thing: God does not want people who heedlessly do wrong and blithely commit injustice, because they know they can just pop by the Temple later and slice a lamb. Rather, God wants people who so believe in and love Him that they obey Him, and “do righteousness and justice.”

Therefore, a godly walk is one part of acceptable worship to God.

[End excerpt]

---

To expand on that a little, I have heard this same idea expressed by Christians in many false dichotomies. For instance:

• It is more important to be loving than to be orthodox
• It is more important to be loving than to be truthful
• It is more important to care about people than to care about ideas
• It is better to walk with Christ than to attend church
• It better to be kind than to be right
• It is better to live the Gospel than to tell it
• Etc. ad infinitum et ad taedium

On the surface, who could argue with any of these statements? The problem is that, unfortunately, they are usually used to evil ends, and they're diabolically clever. Disagree with any of them, and you seem to be arguing against love, practical Christian living, caring, kindness, Gospel living, Mom, puppies and everything wonderful. Who wants to do (or be accused of) any of that?

However, what all of these statements have in common is that, if pressed, they form false dichotomies.

Going back to Proverbs 21:3, liberals in years past have taken such statements in Proverbs and in the prophets as indicating an anti-Temple faction. One can only get there, however, if one rejects the canonical ascriptions of authorship, which requires (at least de facto) rejection of the inerrancy and authority of the text.

Accept the authority of the text, and we go in another direction: the intent is to help readers/hearers evaluate and identify what most matters to God. One knows at the outset that God cannot be saying "Don't do sacrifice," because it was He who enjoined sacrifice in the first place. Likewise, no Bible-believer can imagine that God wants us to reject the teaching of His word in doctrine and theology, or to disdain wrestling intensely for the faith or casting down ideas that oppose themselves to the knowledge of Christ, or refuse to attend church — because it is God Himself who commands that we do such things; and, if we believe Him, we do them, to the best of our ability.

Perhaps we can understand Solomon's wording and thought better if we can get a better idea of the soil from which this proverb was brought, by God's Spirit. What lay behind the composition of this particular proverb? Did Solomon have in mind the narrative of Saul, who disobeyed God, then tried to smear the whole over with a gaudy religious act of sacrifice (1 Samuel 15)? Very possibly.

If so, then Solomon is saying to us what God told Saul through Samuel (1 Sam. 15:22-23):

And Samuel said, "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.  For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king."

...only he said it in a single, pointed, pithy proverb.

Wisdom, and its balances, is hard.

Guess that's why there's a whole book in the Canon devoted to it, and to grounding it in the fear of Yahweh.

---