The Anatomy of Abomination
Introduction: When God Hates
We live in a sentimental, squishy age. Our culture, and sadly, much of the church, has refashioned God into a celestial grandfather whose chief attribute is a sort of benign, indiscriminate tolerance. He is nice. He would never be so severe as to hate anything. But a god who hates nothing is a god who loves nothing. Love and hatred are not opposites; they are two sides of the same coin. To love righteousness is to hate iniquity. To love truth is to despise a lie. To love life is to abhor murder. The God of the Bible is a God of intense, passionate, and holy affections. And the Scriptures are startlingly clear that there are things which Yahweh hates, things which are an abomination to His soul.
This is not a petty dislike, like a man who dislikes broccoli. This is the revulsion of a holy Creator against that which deforms and destroys His good creation. An abomination is something that is ritually and morally repugnant, something that pollutes, that defiles, that corrupts. And here in Proverbs, the Spirit of God gives us a catalog, a divine list of seven such things. This is not an exhaustive list, of course, but it is a representative one. It is a diagnostic chart of the kind of man God despises, the kind of man who came to be personified in the worthless man described just a few verses prior. This list gives us the anatomy of a rebel, showing us how sin progresses from the inside out, from the heart to the hands to the feet to the tongue.
Notice the structure. The writer uses a numerical device, "six things... even seven," to build emphasis. The seventh item is the climax, the culmination of all the others. And as we will see, all these sins are profoundly relational. They are sins against God, certainly, but they manifest themselves in the destruction of human community. They are the tools of the devil, who was a liar and a murderer from the beginning, and his great project is to tear apart what God has joined together. So as we walk through this gallery of abominations, let us not do so as detached observers. Let us allow the Word to be a mirror, to examine our own hearts, our own eyes, our own tongues, and our own feet.
The Text
There are six things which Yahweh hates,
Even seven which are an abomination to Him:
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked thoughts,
Feet that hasten to run to evil,
A false witness who breathes out lies,
And one who spreads strife among brothers.
(Proverbs 6:16-19)
The Fountainhead of Sin (v. 17a)
The list begins where all sin begins: with pride.
"Haughty eyes..." (Proverbs 6:17a)
Haughty eyes are the windows to a proud heart. This is the primal sin, the sin of Satan who said, "I will ascend... I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13-14). Pride is the essential declaration of independence from God. It is the creature puffing himself up against the Creator, forgetting the infinite qualitative distinction between the two. A man with haughty eyes looks down his nose at others because he has first looked up at God and considered himself an equal, or at least a rival.
This is why God hates it. He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). Pride is competitive. It cannot simply be; it must be better than. It is the constant, gnawing need to measure oneself against others and to come out on top. It is the root of envy, bitterness, and, as we will see, every other sin on this list. Humility, by contrast, is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. It is the recognition that every good gift, every talent, every breath, is a sheer gift of grace from a sovereign God. The proud man thinks he is a self-made man, thereby worshipping his creator. The humble man knows he is a God-made man, and worships his true Creator.
The Instrument of Deceit (v. 17b, 19a)
From the proud heart flows the deceitful mouth. Notice that lying appears twice on this list, in two different forms.
"...a lying tongue... A false witness who breathes out lies..." (Proverbs 6:17b, 19a)
A lying tongue is the general practice of falsehood. Our God is a God of truth. His Son is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. His Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. His Word is truth. To be a liar, then, is to be fundamentally anti-God. It is to align oneself with the devil, who is the father of lies (John 8:44). A lie is an attempt to warp reality, to create a world with words that does not exist, in order to gain some advantage. It is a verbal form of theft. You are stealing the truth from another person.
The sixth item, "a false witness who breathes out lies," is a specific and aggravated form of lying. This refers to formal perjury, lying in a legal context to destroy another person's reputation or life. It is the ninth commandment in action. But it also has a broader application. To "breathe out lies" suggests a constant, effortless stream of falsehood. This is the slanderer, the character assassin, whose very atmosphere is toxic with deceit. He doesn't just tell lies; he exhales them. This is a profound corruption of the human faculty of speech, which was given to us to praise God and build up our neighbor.
The Violence of Envy (v. 17c)
Pride and lies inevitably lead to violence.
"And hands that shed innocent blood." (Genesis 6:17c)
This is the sixth commandment. From Cain to the present, murder is the ultimate expression of hatred for a fellow man made in the image of God. To strike at man is to strike at the God in whose image he is made. But we must not limit this to literal, physical murder. The most pervasive and grotesque form of shedding innocent blood in our generation is the holocaust of abortion. We live in a nation that has declared war on its own children. We have legalized the dismemberment of the most helpless and innocent among us. Our hands as a nation are soaked in innocent blood, and we must not imagine that God does not see or that He will not judge.
Furthermore, Jesus radicalized this command in the Sermon on the Mount. He taught that the seed of murder is anger and hatred in the heart (Matthew 5:21-22). You can murder a man with your words. You can assassinate his character, destroy his reputation, and leave him for dead in the court of public opinion. This too is a form of shedding innocent blood, and God hates it.
The Workshop of Wickedness (v. 18)
The next two abominations reveal the internal engine and the outward motion of the wicked man.
"A heart that devises wicked thoughts, Feet that hasten to run to evil." (Proverbs 6:18)
The heart is the command center, the workshop where sin is forged. God hates not just the sinful act, but the sinful thought process that precedes it. This is not talking about a fleeting temptation, but a heart that "devises," that schemes, that plots, that marinates in wickedness. This is the heart that Micah condemns, "Woe to those who devise iniquity and work evil on their beds!" (Micah 2:1). The evil is not accidental; it is intentional, crafted, and cherished in the imagination before it is ever acted out.
And what the heart devises, the feet perform. The phrase "hasten to run to evil" describes an eagerness for sin. This is not a man who is reluctantly dragged into temptation. This is a man who sprints toward it. He loves his sin. He can't wait to get there. There is an alacrity, a joyful zeal in his pursuit of wickedness. This is the opposite of the Christian life, where we are to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness. The wicked man's feet are swift to shed blood, swift to carry a slanderous report, swift to find the adulterous woman's house. His whole being is oriented toward rebellion.
The Climax of Chaos (v. 19b)
All the previous sins find their ultimate expression in the seventh and final abomination.
"And one who spreads strife among brothers." (Proverbs 6:19b)
This is the pinnacle of what God hates because it is the ultimate goal of the devil. God's purpose in redemption is to create a new humanity, a family, a brotherhood united in Christ. "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!" (Psalm 133:1). The sower of discord is the man who takes a crowbar to this holy fellowship. He is the whisperer, the talebearer, the gossip who separates close friends (Proverbs 16:28).
How does he do it? He uses all the other tools in this list. His haughty eyes make him believe he is the one to correct everyone else. His lying tongue and false witness twist the truth. His heart devises grievances and imagines slights. His hands shed the innocent blood of reputations. His feet run to carry the juicy morsel of gossip from one ear to another. He is the personification of all six previous abominations, weaponized for the purpose of destroying the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is a satanic work, and it is an abomination to the God who sent His Son to die to make us one.
Conclusion: The Gospel Cure
This is a grim and searching list. If we are honest, we see ourselves in it. Who has never had a proud thought? Who has never shaded the truth for personal gain? Who has never harbored anger in his heart? Who has never passed on a bit of information that put another in a bad light? We are all guilty. This list is a mirror that shows us our sin and our desperate need for a Savior.
And the glorious news of the gospel is that God has provided the cure for every one of these abominations in the person and work of Jesus Christ. For our haughty eyes, He was humble, not considering equality with God a thing to be grasped. For our lying tongues, He is the Truth incarnate, who never spoke a deceitful word. For our hands that shed innocent blood, His innocent blood was shed for us. For our hearts that devise wickedness, His heart was pierced for our transgressions. For our feet that run to evil, His feet were nailed to a cross. For our false witness, He is the faithful and true witness. And for our sowing of discord, He is our peace, who has broken down the dividing wall of hostility to make us one.
When we come to Christ in faith and repentance, He not only forgives us for these abominations, He begins the work of reversing them in our lives. He gives us a new heart that devises righteousness. He sets our feet on the path of life. He puts a new song in our mouths, a song of truth. He makes us peacemakers, not strife-sowers. This is the great project of sanctification. Therefore, let us hate what God hates, not just in the world, but first in ourselves. And let us love what God loves, pursuing humility, truth, life, and peace, all for the glory of the One who has redeemed us from these very things.