Proverbs 22:12 commentary

12 ¶ The eyes of the LORD preserve knowledge, and he overthroweth the words of the transgressor.

The eyes of the Lord are everywhere searching out every thought and deed of mankind. As the prophet, Hanani, said to King Asa of Judah after he had made a league with Syria rather than depend on the Lord who had delivered Judah from a million man Ethiopian invasion under King Zerah;

2Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.

Proverbs 5:21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

Proverbs 15:3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

God has promised that He would preserve His words.

Psalm 12:6 The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. 7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.

And we have been warned that from the very beginning there were many men who tried to corrupt God’s words.

2Corinthians 2:17 For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.

The Counter-Reformation, an organized attempt by the Roman Catholic Church to overthrow the work of the Protestant churches in the Reformation, gave us the “science” of Textual Criticism, as molded by such Roman Catholic priests and scholars as Richard Simon and philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and Spinoza. These men, rather than view the Bible as divinely inspired, regarded it as just another ancient book and tried to use their own reasoning to compare and contrast manuscripts, whether or not those manuscripts had ever been in much use by Christians, to attempt to discern what readings were most likely in the originals. This is a convenient trick as no one they personally knew or that you could meet and talk to in the flesh had ever seen the originals. So, like much of theoretical science it merely becomes an endless disputation over what seems to one or the other as “most likely”.

These transgressors and corrupters, even today, treat the word of God as of being no more importance than they would view a copy of Livy’s ‘History of Rome’ or Homer’s poem ‘The Illiad’. But, God preserved His words, as promised, in what the textual critics call the Byzantine Text, down through the ages in certain editions of the Old Latin Bible, the Syriac, the Gothic, and English versions right down to the one known to us as the King James Bible or the Authorized Version. Virtually every Bible after that was translated giving authority to manuscripts rejected by the Christian churches throughout history.

The eyes of the Lord preserved knowledge. The words of the transgressors were overthrown. The inconsistencies and lies of the corrupt versions of God’s word are legion. In some versions the first verses of Mark contain a reference to one Old Testament prophet but call it a reference to another. In most corrupt versions the last 12 verses of Mark are labeled illegitimate and yet those verses are found in the majority of ancient Uncial (large block letters) manuscripts that contain the end of Mark. Verses are deleted in versions, verses that Christians have used since the Old Latin Bible was put together in the middle of the second century, and in one, reflecting the Jehovah’s Witness heresy, a popular modern Bible calls Jesus a created god in John 1:18. And yet, those who are not blind to this obvious truth have been blessed with the words of God in a Bible that they can rely on to draw them close to God, to change their lives fundamentally, and to comfort and exhort them, and most of all, to save the lost and sanctify the believer.

The eyes of the Lord preserved the knowledge of Christ. We live in a world that is operated by Satan. Even our own government has long been under his control. He has blinded the minds of men to the truth of the gospel.

2Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Transgressors created false religions under Satan’s influence, such as Islam, where the Devil, under the name of Allah, just as he operated under the name of Zeus in ancient Greece, Bel in Babylon, and Baal in Palestine, reigns supreme. This Allah commands the nominal worship, at least, of a billion people, and is growing because it appeals to man’s carnal appetite for control and mastery of others. The Muslims, his adherents, proudly proclaim that Allah has no son, and yet, a careful reading of the Koran, his book, shows that Allah has three daughters. Allah does not love his creation. And as the ancient Greeks commented (and I am paraphrasing), “the gods torture those that worship them”, as they referred to their pagan representations of Satan who most certainly did not love them, Allah loves no one and promises eternal life to none. A clear sign of a Satanic faith is one where you cannot know that you are saved and can have no assurance of it.

Hindus worship millions of gods. Many other religions, even some claiming to be Christian, have included the false gods of long forgotten paganism as Saints and avatars to cling to for help and mercy. The Roman Catholic Church has even exalted the continued worship of “the goddess”, Ishtar, Diana, Venus, and Isis, in the person of Mary, whose Catholic form bears no resemblance to the humble Jewish maiden of the Bible who was the vessel by which God came to earth in the form of a man.

But, the knowledge of Christ has not been lost, for God had said;

Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

The eyes of the Lord shall preserve knowledge. God overthrows the words of the transgressor, whether they be deceived Christians or those of other religions, and the ultimate transgressor, Satan, himself, shall be overthrown one day, and is overthrown already.