Two Ditches, One Destination: Death Text: Proverbs 2:12-19
Introduction: The Antithesis is Everything
In our modern age, we are constantly told that the path to a good life is paved with tolerance, inclusivity, and the blurring of distinctions. We are encouraged to believe that all paths ultimately lead to the same mountaintop. But the book of Proverbs, and indeed the entire Bible, presents a radically different map of reality. It tells us there are two ways, and only two. There is the way of wisdom, and the way of folly. The path of life, and the path of death. There is no third way, no demilitarized zone, no comfortable middle ground where you can build a summer cottage. This is what we call the antithesis, the absolute opposition between the City of God and the City of Man, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.
This is not a popular message. It is sharp, angular, and offensive to the modern sensibility which wants to have its cake and eat it too. The world wants to live by the principles of darkness while enjoying the sunshine of life. But God's wisdom, which this chapter tells us to cry out for, is given for a purpose. And that purpose is deliverance. It is a rescue operation. Wisdom is not a set of quaint aphorisms for self-improvement; it is a divine life-raft thrown to a man drowning in a sea of his own foolishness.
In the passage before us, Solomon details two specific dangers from which wisdom delivers the young man. These are not two unrelated problems, but rather two expressions of the same root rebellion against God's created order. They are two different ditches on either side of the narrow path of life, but both end in the same place: death. The first is the man of perverse speech, the intellectual rebel who twists reality with his words. The second is the strange woman, the sexual rebel who twists the covenant of marriage with her body. One corrupts the mind, the other corrupts the body, but both are aimed squarely at the heart, seeking to sever it from the covenant of God.
We must understand that these are not just ancient warnings about bad company and loose women. They are archetypes of the world's rebellion. The perverse man represents the lie of autonomy, the idea that we can define truth for ourselves. The strange woman represents the lie of eroticism, the idea that our desires are sovereign. These are the twin pillars of the secular creed, and wisdom is given to us that we might see them for what they are: signposts on the highway to hell.
The Text
To deliver you from the way of evil, From the man who speaks perverse things; From those who forsake the paths of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness; Who are glad to do evil And they rejoice in the perversity of evil; Whose paths are crooked, And who are devious in their tracks; To deliver you from the strange woman, From the foreign woman who flatters with her words; Who forsakes the close companion of her youth And forgets the covenant of her God; For her house sinks down to death And her tracks descend to the dead; All who go to her will not return, And they will not reach the paths of life.
(Proverbs 2:12-19 LSB)
The Intellectual Rebel (vv. 12-15)
First, wisdom delivers from the man of intellectual perversity.
"To deliver you from the way of evil, From the man who speaks perverse things; From those who forsake the paths of uprightness To walk in the ways of darkness; Who are glad to do evil And they rejoice in the perversity of evil; Whose paths are crooked, And who are devious in their tracks;" (Proverbs 2:12-15)
The deliverance that wisdom brings is first from "the way of evil." This is a road, a path. And on this path, you will meet a certain kind of man, the one "who speaks perverse things." The Hebrew word for perverse means twisted, distorted. This is the man who takes God's straight roads and makes them crooked. He is the original deconstructionist. He cannot create, so he twists. He cannot build, so he dismantles. His primary tool is his mouth. He speaks things that are fundamentally warped because his heart is warped.
Notice the progression. It begins with forsaking the "paths of uprightness." Uprightness means straightness. God's law is a straight path. To forsake it is a conscious choice, an act of apostasy. You don't stumble off this path; you leave it. And where do you go? You "walk in the ways of darkness." This is the great exchange: light for darkness, truth for a lie. This is not a neutral choice. It is a moral choice with cosmic consequences.
But it gets worse. They are not merely mistaken; they are malicious. They are "glad to do evil." They don't just fall into sin; they revel in it. They "rejoice in the perversity of evil." This is the essence of diabolical joy. It is not just the pleasure of the sin itself, but the pleasure found in the very twistedness of the sin. It is the laughter of the vandal, the glee of the blasphemer. This is a heart that has become so calloused that it calls evil good and good evil, and delights in the confusion.
Their paths are "crooked" and "devious." This describes a life of scheming, of intrigue, of constant maneuvering. Because they have rejected the straight path of God's Word, nothing in their life can be straightforward. Their business dealings are shady, their relationships are manipulative, their arguments are sophistry. They live in a labyrinth of their own making, and wisdom is given to keep you from ever entering it.
The Covenantal Rebel (vv. 16-17)
The second deliverance is from the strange woman, the adulteress.
"To deliver you from the strange woman, From the foreign woman who flatters with her words; Who forsakes the close companion of her youth And forgets the covenant of her God;" (Proverbs 2:16-17)
Just as the perverse man attacks God's order with his mind, the strange woman attacks it with her body. She is called "strange" and "foreign," not necessarily because she is from another country, but because she is an alien to the covenant. She operates outside the bounds of God's law for sexuality and marriage. She is a spiritual foreigner, a domestic terrorist against the family.
Her weapon, like the perverse man's, is her words: she "flatters." Flattery is dishonest praise for selfish gain. It is the native language of the seducer. She tells the young man what his vanity wants to hear, not what his soul needs to know. She builds a bridge of lies to get to his heart, his body, and his wallet.
But her true crime is revealed in verse 17. She is one "who forsakes the close companion of her youth." This is her husband, the man she married when her vows were fresh. She has abandoned him. But this is not merely a social betrayal; it is a theological one. She "forgets the covenant of her God." Marriage is not a private contract between two individuals that can be renegotiated or dissolved at will. It is a covenant, a solemn, binding oath made before God. God is the third party in every Christian marriage. To break the marriage vow is to betray your spouse, yes, but more fundamentally, it is to forget and defy your God. This woman is a covenant-breaker, and in this, she is a picture of all idolatry, which is spiritual adultery.
The Dead End (vv. 18-19)
Solomon concludes with a stark warning about the destination of this path. It is not a detour; it is a dead end.
"For her house sinks down to death And her tracks descend to the dead; All who go to her will not return, And they will not reach the paths of life." (Proverbs 2:18-19)
Her house is not a home; it is a tomb. It "sinks down to death." The imagery is of a structure built on quicksand, collapsing into the underworld. Her "tracks," the path she walks, lead to the "dead," to the shades in Sheol. This is not just poetic hyperbole. The consequences of sexual sin are devastatingly real. It leads to the death of conscience, the death of reputation, the death of relationships, the death of families, and ultimately, if unrepented of, to eternal death.
The warning is absolute: "All who go to her will not return." This is a road with no off-ramps. "They will not reach the paths of life." The two paths are mutually exclusive. You cannot have one foot in her house and one foot on the path of life. The entanglement of sexual sin is uniquely powerful, uniquely blinding. It sears the conscience and hardens the heart in a way that few other sins can. This is not to say that repentance is impossible, for with God nothing is impossible. But the warning is meant to be terrifying. Don't be the fool who thinks he can play with this fire and not be consumed. Don't think you can take a short stroll down this path and easily find your way back. The undertow is strong, and it pulls in one direction: down.
Conclusion: The One Deliverer
So we have two great enemies: the intellectual rebel who twists the truth and the sexual rebel who breaks the covenant. Both promise freedom and pleasure, but their paths both lead to the grave. How is a young man, or any of us, to be delivered?
The chapter begins with the answer: by receiving God's words, by crying out for insight, by seeking wisdom as you would seek for silver. But we know, looking back from this side of the cross, that wisdom is not an abstract principle. Wisdom has a name. The Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24, 30).
Christ is the ultimate deliverance from the perverse man because He is the Truth incarnate (John 14:6). He is the Logos, the divine Word, who speaks reality into being. His words are not twisted; they are the straight lines by which all of reality is measured. To be delivered from the crooked paths of evil men is to have your mind taken captive by the beautiful, coherent, and liberating truth of Jesus Christ.
And Christ is the ultimate deliverance from the strange woman because He is the faithful Covenant-Keeper. He is the true Bridegroom who loved His bride, the church, and gave Himself up for her. He never forsook the companion of His youth. He never forgot the covenant of His God. He was faithful unto death, even death on a cross, to purchase a bride who was, by nature, an adulteress, a spiritual harlot chasing after other gods. He delivers us from the house of death by going into that house Himself, and then rising again, blazing a new trail, the true path of life.
The choice before us is the same choice that has been before every generation. Will you listen to the flattering lies of the perverse man and the strange woman? Will you walk down their crooked paths, which promise freedom but are actually a prison that sinks into hell? Or will you listen to the voice of the one true Man, the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you walk in His path, the path of the cross, which looks like death but is the only path that leads to life? There is no third option. The antithesis is everything.