Meditationen am Gnadenstuhl Proverbs 26:11-15 All About Fools, Part 3

Thursday, August 31, 2023

Proverbs 26:11–15

[11] Like a dog that returns to his vomit

is a fool who repeats his folly.

[12] Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes?

There is more hope for a fool than for him.

[13] The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road!

There is a lion in the streets!”

[14] As a door turns on its hinges,

so does a sluggard on his bed.

[15] The sluggard buries his hand in the dish;

it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth. (ESV)

All About Fools, Part 3

v.11 A mother dog regularly regurgitates food for her pups. The act of the mother dog "pre-eating" began the digestive process, and thus, the food she regurgitated was easier for the pups to digest. Therefore, a dog will instinctively consume its own vomit because this act is hard-wired into its behavior, even though the action of regurgitation is often to protect the animal from food it should not have eaten in the first place. The fool's behavior is similar and so well known that St. Peter quotes it in 2 Peter 2:22. There, the analogy is applied to baptized believers who are protected from the world's defilements by faith in Christ but turn away from this protection and flee the faith. Peter goes on to quote an extra-Biblical proverb, "A sow, after washing herself, wallows in the mire," which expresses the same sentiment. Our hard-wired instinct is to do what is harmful to us spiritually because of our sinful nature.

v.12 A person who is in love with his own wisdom is not easily helped because he will reject outside help as inferior to his own—even when that help comes in the form of true Wisdom. This proverb says it is easier for a fool to be helped than such a narcissist. Compare with Proverbs 29:20.

v.13 This verse begins a set of four proverbs about the lazy and is similar to Proverbs 22:13. It mocks the lazy person who will go to great lengths to formulate any excuse to avoid work. His ridiculous claim is that he cannot go out to work because a lion is nearby and would eat him. This claim is made even more ludicrous by the fact that lions did not live in urban Palestine, only in the wilderness (Isaiah 30:6; Jeremiah 49:19; Song of Solomon 4:8). He acts as though work would kill him.

v.14 This proverb states that a lazy person turns over easily in his natural habitat—his bed—as easily as a door pivots on its hinges. Like many proverbs, this verse uses humor to teach a serious truth.

v.15 This is another humorous proverb. Here, the lazy man is so fatigued that he cannot even feed himself. The act of reaching for food exhausts him so much that he can not retrieve it to put it in his mouth. His laziness does not prevent him from starting a project but prevents him from following through to finish anything. Compare with Proverbs 19:24.