Proverbs 23 Bible study: Give me your heart

The chapter opens at a table: "When you sit to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before you" (23:1). Then comes a startling line: "put a knife to your throat if you are a man given to appetite" (23:2). The Hebrew word for knife comes only here in the Hebrew Bible. "Don’t be desirous of his dainties, since they are deceitful food" (23:3) (tap dainties). A few verses on there is another table: "Don’t eat the food of him who has a stingy eye, and don’t crave his delicacies" (23:6). Here is what almost everyone misses: in Hebrew the two tables share their words. Eat in 23:1 and 23:6 is one verb, desirous (23:3) and crave (23:6) are one verb, food (23:3, 23:6) is one word, and dainties and delicacies are one word. At the second table the saying names the trouble in the host: "“Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you" (23:7), and "You will vomit up the morsel which you have eaten and waste your pleasant words" (23:8). Between the two tables stands a saying about riches: "Don’t weary yourself to be rich. In your wisdom, show restraint" (23:4), for "it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky" (23:5) (tap rich, flies).

Proverbs 23:30→leads toLuke 21:34

Proverbs 23 asks, "Who has woe? Who has sorrow?" (Proverbs 23:29), and answers, "Those who stay long at the wine" (Proverbs 23:30). It warns that "your mind will imagine confusing things" (Proverbs 23:33), where mind is the chapter's word for heart, and it ends with the drinker saying, "I will look for more" (Proverbs 23:35). Jesus, speaking of the coming of the Son of Man (Luke 21:27), said, "So be careful, or your hearts will be loaded down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day will come on you suddenly" (Luke 21:34). Jesus doesn't cite Proverbs, so setting the two together is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, not only a shared word: in both, drink is a danger to a person's heart (Proverbs 23:33; Luke 21:34). "That day" is Jesus's own word, in the setting of the verses around it (Luke 21:27-36), and Proverbs 23 doesn't speak of it; this line doesn't make the chapter speak of that day. Christians read the two together in more than one way. One reading hears Jesus warning of the same danger Proverbs 23 describes, what drink does to the heart. Another hears Luke 21:34 as a call to be ready for that day, where drunkenness is one of three things Jesus names, beside carousing and "cares of this life", so the likeness to Proverbs 23 is only in part. These notes pick neither, and pass no verdict on anyone who drinks.

לֵבlevsay LEV

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "inner man, mind, will, heart". Strong's: "the heart; also used (figuratively) very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect". The chapter has it nine times in Hebrew. The WEB gives it as heart seven times: "his heart is not with you" (23:7), "Apply your heart to instruction" (23:12), "if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad" (23:15), "Don’t let your heart envy sinners" (23:17), "keep your heart on the right path" (23:19), and "My son, give me your heart" (23:26). It gives it as mind in "your mind will imagine confusing things" (23:33), and as middle in "he who lies down in the middle of the sea" (23:34). The heart of 23:16 is another word. Proverbs has lev 93 times in Hebrew; one is "Keep your heart with all diligence" (Proverbs 4:23).