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16th August 2025
SaturdayReflection
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'Steve Sande'
to share the Good News with everyone.
'Watch the path of your feet'
Proverbs 4:26-27
There is a way that our life can change direction positively
to align all of our actions with God's will.
"Watch the path of your feet And all your ways will be established. Do not turn to the right nor to the left; Turn your foot from evil."
Proverbs 4.26-27 NASB
We're back again in Proverbs, which I have to admit made me very happy.
Both the Psalms and Proverbs contain so much condensed wisdom that I find myself eager to study them in detail when God points me in their direction.
Proverbs 4 has a five-part structure:
● an exhortation to acquire wisdom (verses 1-4a),
● a list of the benefits of wisdom (4b-9),
● a call to pursue a righteous lifestyle (10-13),
● a warning against a wicked lifestyle (14-19), and
● an exhortation to righteousness (20-27).
By the time we get to verses 26-27, Solomon has told his listeners/readers to seek wisdom because of its many benefits, told them to pursue righteousness and avoid wickedness, and is now summing up the difference between the two paths.
The verse starts with the admonition to watch the path of your feet.
Watch comes from the Hebrew word which means to weigh, make level, and then to ponder.
While the root word appears to describe weighing something with an old style balance scale, here it is used to describe keeping a level path - figuratively meaning "live a righteous life".
The Hebrew word for the path, is with the meaning of an "entrenchment or track".
In the 9th Century BC when this was written, there were two ways to travel on land - by foot, or by cart.
The carts left a rut or path, and that's what people would follow when walking from one town to the next.
Taken together, the idea of the first sentence is to make straight and level wheel tracks for your feet - in other words, live in the right way!
Following that path establishes your ways - your life and lifestyle choices - so that you live righteously.
Solomon then advises turning neither right nor left, but staying on that righteous road.
In Hebrew, the word used for turn is a verb that has the meaning "leaning or inclining".
We can think of Proverbs 4:27 as telling us not to lean in the direction of a bad habit or an outright sin.
I found this comment to be useful - "Remember if you lean too much, you may end up taking a serious fall!"
Also from the same commentary are these wise words about the last part of these verses:
Here is the point - To not turn to the right or left and so to stay on the path of righteousness, we must make the conscious choice to turn away from evil, even the suggestion of evil.
So the command is to keep from "swerving" off the "highway of holiness" one must assiduously avoid evil!
If we are going to turn, that turn should be away from evil - staying on the path of righteousness.
In this last sentence, the Hebrew word used for turn is different from before - meaning in this case "to change direction, to turn away, to quit, or to keep far away".
Turning away from sin, quitting destructive habits, and keeping far away from bad influences is moving in a good direction.
There is a way that our life can change direction positively - to align all of our actions with God's will.
This is an edited version.
The full article and Bible references are avaiable on request
Steve Sande
Steve is a retired tech blogger and author who founded the Heaven on Wheels ministry in 2022.
Heaven On Wheels
Daily Christian devotions, prayer, and Bible study written by a married couple who left the darkness, found the light, and want to share the Good News with everyone.
We're not theologians, nor are we clergy.
As Barb put it today, "We're amateurs in Christ"!
At one point in our lives we were atheists, but God kept working on us through the Holy Spirit and we re-committed our lives to Christ.
We find this little ministry to be educational for us, as we research each piece of Scripture we write about.
Our hope is that while we're learning, you're also getting inspired and getting closer to God!
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