The Fountain of Justice Text: Proverbs 16:10
Introduction: The Borrowed Authority of Kings
We live in an age that is profoundly confused about authority. Our modern political discourse is a veritable Babel, a confusion of tongues where words like justice, rights, and law have been untethered from their only possible anchor. Men want justice without a judge, law without a lawgiver, and authority without an author. They want the fruit of righteousness to grow from the poisoned soil of autonomy. This is not just a political problem; it is a theological catastrophe. And like all theological catastrophes, it begins with a faulty view of God and, consequently, a faulty view of man.
The modern secularist believes that political authority bubbles up from below, from the consent of the governed, from the general will of the people. But this is a fiction, a myth that men tell themselves in the dark to keep from acknowledging the blinding light of reality. All authority, everywhere, at all times, is delegated authority. All authority flows down from the throne of God Almighty. The president, the king, the prime minister, the governor, the mayor, the policeman on the corner, and the father in his home all hold their authority as a temporary lease from the great Landlord of the universe. They are stewards, not owners. And one day, the Owner is going to come and ask for an accounting.
This is the foundational truth that our passage in Proverbs sets before us. It speaks of the king, but the principle applies to all civil authority. It reminds us that the courtroom and the throne room are not secular spaces, cordoned off from the things of God. They are, in fact, altars. And at those altars, either justice is offered up as a pleasing sacrifice to God, or it is perverted, and strange fire is offered instead. This proverb is a potent reminder of where true authority comes from and the terrible, weighty responsibility that comes with it.
The Text
A divine decision is in the lips of the king;
His mouth should not err in judgment.
(Proverbs 16:10 LSB)
The Oracle on the Lips (v. 10a)
We begin with the first clause:
"A divine decision is in the lips of the king;" (Proverbs 16:10a)
The word translated here as "divine decision" is the Hebrew word qesem. This word is fascinating because it is most often used in a negative sense, referring to divination, sorcery, or the occult practices forbidden by God's law. So why is it used here in a positive sense? The Proverb is making a stark, confrontational point. When a pagan king wants to know the future or make a weighty decision, he consults an oracle, a soothsayer, a necromancer. He seeks a word from "the gods." But for the king who sits on a throne established by Yahweh, he does not need to go seeking such a word. The word is already on his lips. He himself is to be the oracle of God.
This does not mean the king is infallible. It does not mean he is divine. It certainly does not mean that whatever the king says is, by definition, the word of God. That is the lie of the divine right of kings in its corrupt form, and it is the lie of every tyrant who sets himself up in the place of God. Rather, it means that the office of the king is a divine institution. The king is God's minister, as Paul tells us in Romans 13. He is a deacon of God, appointed to wield the sword for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do good. The decisions he makes, the judgments he renders, are therefore freighted with divine significance. He is not just giving his opinion. He is not just enforcing the will of the majority. He is, or should be, speaking for God.
This is a terrifying thought. Every time a judge passes a sentence, he is acting as God's representative. His gavel falls with an echo of the final judgment. His words carry the weight of a divine oracle. This is why justice is not a matter of pragmatism or social engineering. It is a matter of speaking truthfully about good and evil, as God Himself has defined them. The king's lips are a place where heaven and earth are supposed to meet. His words should be the conduit through which God's righteous standards are applied to the affairs of men.
The Obligation of the Mouth (v. 10b)
Because the king's office is divinely instituted, there is a divine standard to which he is held. The second clause lays this out with stark clarity.
"His mouth should not err in judgment." (Proverbs 16:10b)
The word for "err" here is ma'al, which means to act treacherously, to be unfaithful, to betray a trust. This is covenantal language. The king is in a covenant relationship with God, who gave him his authority, and with the people, over whom he exercises it. To render an unjust judgment is not merely a mistake or a procedural error. It is an act of treason. It is a betrayal of the God who appointed him.
Notice the standard. The standard is not that his mouth should not be unpopular. It is not that his mouth should not offend modern sensibilities. The standard is that his mouth should not be treacherous in judgment. And what is the benchmark for just judgment? It is not the king's own conscience, nor the latest opinion poll, nor the traditions of men. The standard for judgment is the law of God. "To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isaiah 8:20). A king's judgment is righteous only insofar as it aligns with the character and revealed will of God. His mouth must be calibrated to the Word of God.
When a king, or any civil magistrate, decriminalizes what God calls abomination, he is erring in judgment. When he punishes what God calls righteous, he is erring in judgment. When he calls evil good and good evil, when he puts darkness for light and light for darkness, his mouth has become treacherous. He has ceased to be God's minister and has become a minister of lawlessness. He is no longer an oracle of God; he is a mouthpiece for rebellion.
This is why a nation's laws are a theological statement. You can read the law code of any nation and see a clear picture of the god they serve. If their laws protect the unborn, honor marriage, defend property, and punish wickedness swiftly, they are, however imperfectly, honoring the one true God. But if their laws sanction the murder of the unborn, redefine marriage, confiscate property through inflation and taxation, and call perversion a civil right, then they are serving a different god entirely. They are serving the god of self, the god of chaos, the god of death. And a king who presides over such a system is a king whose mouth errs grievously in judgment.
Conclusion: The King and the King of Kings
This proverb presents an impossibly high standard. What mere man can have a divine oracle on his lips? What fallen son of Adam can keep his mouth from erring in judgment? The history of Israel's kings is a tragic answer to that question. From Saul to Solomon to the wicked kings who followed, we see a parade of men whose mouths betrayed justice, who acted treacherously against their God.
And this is the point. This proverb, like the law itself, is meant to drive us to despair of salvation through any earthly king. It is meant to make us long for the one true King, the one whose lips are full of grace and truth, the one whose mouth never once erred in judgment. It points us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the King who is the very Word of God incarnate. A divine decision is not merely in His lips; He is the divine decision. He is the one of whom Pilate, that erring magistrate, unwittingly spoke the truth: "Behold, the Man!" which was to say, "Behold, the true King." Jesus stood before the treacherous judgment seat of men, and though He was the only truly just judge, He submitted to their unjust verdict in order to exhaust the curse of all our unjust dealings.
Because of His life, death, and resurrection, He now sits on the ultimate throne. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. And He has sent His people into the world as His ambassadors, to proclaim the standards of His kingdom. We are to call all earthly kings, all presidents, all prime ministers, and all magistrates to bow the knee to Christ and to govern according to His law. We are to remind them that their authority is borrowed and that their judgments will be judged.
And for us, as citizens of this heavenly kingdom, we must pray for our leaders. We must pray that God would grant them wisdom, that He would put His fear in their hearts, and that He would restrain their mouths from treachery. And we must live as a people whose own lives are governed by the just judgments of our King, showing the world what true, righteous, and peaceable order looks like under the good reign of Jesus Christ.