Seven Hateful Things

1 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proml look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness thht speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.” — vi. 16-19.

SOME of these hateful things are characteristics of particular members in the body, and some are characteristics generally of the man. I do not perceive the principle of arrangement in the nature of the things; perhaps the order is modified by the exigencies of Hebrew poetry.

It is a claim which the Lord puts forth as the Maker and Giver of all our faculties. These are some of the marks by which his wisdom is visibly manifested in creation. He is displeased when they are plunged into lusts, and employed as tools in the service of Satan. These eyes, this tongue, these hands and feet, are instruments of surpassing skill and beauty. They declare God’s glory as articulately as the stars of heaven or the flowers of earth. Who shall dare to corrupt the allegiance of these tributaries, and enrol them rebels against the King of kings? The Maker cares for all his works. To pervert any part of them provokes Him ,to anger. Every purpose to which the members of our body are put is noticed by the All-seeing. If we are in spirit his dear children, we have opportunity to please God as often as we exercise any faculty of our mind, or member of our frame.

There is one parallel well worthy of notice between the seven cursed things here, and the seven blessed things in the fifth chapter of Matthew. In the Old Testament the things are set down in the sterner form of what the Lord hates, like the “thou shalt not” of the Decalogue. In the New Testament the form is in accordance with the gentleness of Christ. There we learn the good things that are blessed, and are left to gather thence the opposite evils that are cursed. But, making allowance for the difference in form, the first and the last of the seven are identical in the two lists. “The Lord hates a proud look,” is precisely equivalent to “blessed are the poor in spirit;” and “he that soweth discord among brethren,” is the exact converse of the “peacemaker.” This coincidence must be designed. When Jesus was teaching his disciples on the Mount, he seems to have had in view the similar instructions that Solomon had formerly delivered, and while the teaching is substantially new, there is as much of allusion to the ancient Scripture as to make it manifest that the Great Teacher kept his eye upon the prophets, and sanctioned all their testimony.