Commentary - Proverbs 11:27

Bird's-eye view

This proverb sets before us the great antithesis that governs all of human life. It is a simple, stark, and unavoidable choice. There are two paths, and only two. A man is either seeking good, or he is searching for evil. His trajectory is either upward toward favor, blessing, and life, or it is downward toward the very evil he seeks, which will boomerang and strike him. The proverb operates on the principle of moral resonance. What you send out into God's world is what comes back to you. If you broadcast goodness, you will receive favor. If you go digging for trouble, you will find it, and it will bury you. This is not karma; this is the established, covenantal order of a personal God who is not mocked. What a man sows, that he will also reap. The proverb diagnoses the heart's intention, what it "earnestly seeks" or "searches for", and connects it directly to the man's ultimate destiny.

At the heart of this is the nature of man himself. By nature, fallen man does not earnestly seek good. He may seek good things, like prosperity or pleasure, but he does not seek goodness itself, which is found only in God. The natural man searches for evil, perhaps not explicitly, but by seeking his own glory and his own way, he is on a collision course with the God who defines reality. The gospel is what transforms a seeker of evil into a seeker of good. Through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, a man is given a new heart with new desires. He is turned from a diligent seeker of self and sin to one who earnestly seeks the good of God's kingdom, the good of his neighbor, and the good of his own soul through sanctification. This proverb, then, is both a sharp warning to the wicked and a sweet encouragement to the righteous.

Outline

Context In Proverbs

Proverbs 11 is a chapter full of sharp contrasts between the righteous and the wicked, the upright and the perverse. The chapter opens with the Lord's hatred of dishonest scales and His delight in a just weight (v. 1), establishing a theme of integrity versus corruption that runs throughout. We see contrasts in speech (v. 9, 11-13), wealth (v. 4, 16, 24-26, 28), and ultimate destiny (v. 3, 5-8, 19, 21, 31). Verse 27 fits seamlessly into this pattern. It is another facet of the same diamond, showing that the fundamental difference between the righteous and the wicked is not just in their actions, but in their deepest motivations and desires, what they are actively seeking. The surrounding verses promise deliverance and blessing for the righteous, but calamity and wrath for the wicked. This proverb distills that broader theme into the engine room of the heart. Your life's trajectory is determined by what your heart is hunting.

Key Issues

The Moral Boomerang

The world God made is a world of moral physics. It has laws, just as surely as it has a law of gravity. One of those central laws is what we might call the principle of the boomerang. What you throw out is what comes back to you, often with greater speed and force. This proverb is a concise statement of that law. It is not an impersonal, karmic force. It is the active, personal, and just rule of a holy God. He has structured His creation such that righteousness is the path to life and blessing, and wickedness is the path to ruin. When a man dedicates his energies to a particular end, God sees to it that he gets what he was after, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

The fool thinks he can search for evil for others and have it miss him. He thinks he can dig a pit for his neighbor and not fall into it himself. He believes he can sow discord, gossip, and malice and then retire to a peaceful and happy home. The book of Proverbs, and this verse in particular, exists to disabuse him of this fantasy. God is the great governor of the boomerang. He ensures that every missile returns to its launching point. The man who searches for evil is not just a hunter; he is also the designated target. And God does not miss.

Verse by Verse Commentary

27 He who earnestly seeks good seeks favor,

The first clause sets up the positive side of the antithesis. The key here is the adverb earnestly. The Hebrew word is related to the idea of seeking early, like the dawn. This is not a casual, lazy, now-and-then wishing for good things. This is a diligent, purposeful, disciplined pursuit. This is the man who gets up in the morning with the intention of doing good. He seeks the good of his family, the good of his church, the good of his community. He is looking for opportunities to be a blessing, to build up, to bring shalom. He is not seeking his own good first, but rather goodness itself. And what is the result of this earnest pursuit? He "seeks favor." The construction here is interesting. It doesn't say he "finds" favor, but that in seeking good, he is simultaneously seeking favor. The two pursuits are one and the same. The favor he finds is, first and foremost, the favor of God. God loves to see His creatures reflecting His own benevolent character. But this divine favor overflows into human favor. A man who is genuinely dedicated to the well-being of others will, as a general rule, be well-regarded. People know who is for them and who is not. This is not a promise that he will never be opposed, Christ Himself was opposed, but it is a proverbial truth that the path of goodness is the path of blessing and favor.

But he who searches for evil, evil will come to him.

Here is the dark side of the coin, the other path. The contrast in verbs is important. The first man "earnestly seeks" good. This man "searches for" evil. The Hebrew word here means to dig for, to hunt, to investigate. This is the man who is looking for a reason to be offended. He is the man who hunts for gossip. He is the man who digs for dirt on his rivals. He actively plans and schemes for the harm of others, or, at the very least, is callously indifferent to it in the pursuit of his own selfish ends. He is a fault-finder, a troublemaker, a man who thrives on discord. The proverb's verdict is swift and just: evil will come to him. The very thing he was hunting will turn around and hunt him. The evil he intended for others will find its home in his own lap. He wanted to find evil, and God says, "Fine. You can have it." The pit he dug for his enemy becomes his own grave. The fire he started for his neighbor's house burns his own house down. This is the terrible, inexorable justice of God's world. The man who makes evil his project will find that he himself is the project's final victim.

Application

This proverb forces us to ask a fundamental question of our own hearts: What are you hunting? When you wake up in the morning, what is the object of your earnest search? Are you looking for ways to build, to bless, to encourage, to serve? Or are you, perhaps without realizing it, searching for reasons to be bitter, to complain, to tear down, to advance your own cause at the expense of others?

Our culture is filled with men and women who are professional searchers for evil. They call it social justice, but it is often just a sanctified hunt for grievances. They are constantly digging for reasons to be outraged, to cancel, to destroy. This proverb warns that such a pursuit is suicidal. The culture of outrage will eventually consume itself. The evil it seeks will come to it.

For the Christian, this proverb is a call to be a conscious and diligent seeker of good. This is not our natural inclination. Our fallen nature is to seek our own good, which is a form of searching for evil because it places the self on the throne where God belongs. But in Christ, we have been given a new nature. We have been called to overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). This means we must be intentional. We must plan for goodness. We must actively look for opportunities to show favor, to speak a kind word, to do a good deed. We are to be imitators of our God, who is good and does good. When we earnestly seek good, we are walking in the path He has laid out for us, a path that leads to His favor, both in this life and in the one to come. The ultimate good we seek is the glory of God, and in seeking that, we find our own truest blessing.