Bird's-eye view
This proverb is a master class in spiritual realism. It confronts a common but misguided pietistic notion that sin is never actually enjoyable. The Bible, and this verse in particular, teaches no such thing. The lie is sweet, the stolen water is refreshing, the bread of deceit goes down easy. If it were not so, there would be no temptation. The power of this proverb lies in its unflinching honesty about the immediate appeal of sin, which it then juxtaposes with the brutal, gritty reality of its long-term consequences. It teaches us to be wise auditors of pleasure, to look beyond the immediate gratification and calculate the final cost. The image is visceral: the delight of sweet bread turning into a mouthful of useless, painful, tooth-breaking gravel. This is a call to wisdom, which is the ability to see the whole movie and not just the enticing snapshot.
The core issue is a conflict between two time frames. Folly lives in the moment, grabbing for the immediate sweetness. Wisdom lives in the light of eternity, understanding that today's choices have a direct and causal relationship with tomorrow's realities. The bread is obtained by "lying" or "deceit," which means it is fundamentally fraudulent. It is an unreal meal. And because it is unreal, it cannot ultimately nourish. It can only provide the illusion of satisfaction before the inevitable and painful exposure to what is real, which is the gravel. This principle applies to every form of sin, from a petty lie to a grand financial scheme built on fraud, from a moment of illicit sexual pleasure to a lifetime of covetousness.
Outline
- 1. The Deceptive Meal (Prov 20:17)
- a. The Initial Sweetness of Sin (Prov 20:17a)
- b. The Inevitable Consequence of Sin (Prov 20:17b)
Context In Proverbs
Proverbs consistently contrasts the path of the wise with the path of the fool, and this verse is a prime example of that overarching theme. The book is intensely practical, concerned with how one navigates God's world successfully. Success, for Proverbs, is defined by fearing the Lord and walking in His ways. This verse fits into a broader collection of warnings against dishonesty, quick and illicit gain, and the lies of the adulteress. For example, Proverbs 9 speaks of stolen waters that are sweet and bread eaten in secret that is pleasant (Prov 9:17), which is a clear parallel. Proverbs also warns that "an inheritance may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be blessed" (Prov 20:21). The theme is consistent: the shortcut of sin, which always involves some form of deceit, may look appealing, but it is a dead-end street that terminates in disaster. This proverb distills that broad wisdom into one memorable, concrete image.
Key Issues
- The Nature of Temptation
- Short-Term vs. Long-Term Thinking
- The Law of Sowing and Reaping
- The Deceitfulness of Sin
- The Reality of Divine Judgment
The Snapshot and the Movie
One of the central tasks of Christian wisdom is learning how to think in the right time signature. The fool is a man who thinks in snapshots. He sees the bait, and it looks good. He sees the bread of deceit, and it looks and smells like any other loaf of bread. He takes a bite, and it is sweet. Snapshot. For him, that is the end of the story. He lives in an eternal present, disconnected from cause and effect, from sowing and reaping.
The wise man, by contrast, has learned to think in terms of movies. He sees the whole sequence. He sees the sweet bread, yes, but his mind, trained by Scripture, immediately fast-forwards to the next scene, the one with the mouth full of gravel. He knows that the two scenes are inextricably linked. The gravel is the necessary and unavoidable sequel to the sweet bread. This is why godly people say no to sin. It is not because they fail to see its sweetness, but because they see past it to the bitterness that follows. As Hebrews tells us, Moses chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the "pleasures of sin for a season" (Heb 11:25). Notice the text does not deny the pleasure, it simply puts a time limit on it. Wisdom is learning to read the clock.
Verse by Verse Commentary
17a Bread obtained by lying is sweet to a man,
The proverb begins with a statement of fact that must be acknowledged if we are to understand temptation at all. The bread that comes from deceit is sweet. The Hebrew word for "lying" or "deceit" refers to falsehood, fraud, and illusion. This is bread that was not earned, not deserved, not rightfully his. It could be money from a dishonest business deal, a promotion gained by slandering a rival, or the pleasure of an adulterous affair secured through lies. And the Bible says, quite plainly, that it is sweet. It tastes good. There is a genuine, though fleeting, pleasure in getting away with something. Some well-meaning Christians try to deny this; they tell their children that sin is ugly and repulsive from start to finish. But the child knows better, and when he is tempted, he starts to wonder if his parents have been lying to him about other things as well. The bait has to look good, or it would not be bait. The lie has to be attractive, or no one would believe it. The sweetness is part of the trap, and we must be honest about it.
17b But afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel.
Here is the pivot. The word afterward is the hinge on which wisdom turns. The experience does not end with sweetness. There is a second course to this meal, and it is inedible. The image is stark and brutal. Imagine chewing on a delicious piece of cake, only to have it transform in your mouth into a collection of sharp, gritty stones. It is an image of profound disillusionment and pain. The pleasure is not just replaced by neutrality; it is replaced by its opposite, by something that mocks the initial delight. The gravel represents the consequences. It is the audit you cannot escape, the marriage that falls apart, the reputation that is ruined, the inner hollowness and guilt that cannot be scrubbed away. It is the judgment of God, which is always perfectly suited to the crime. You used your mouth to lie and to enjoy the fruits of that lie; now that same mouth will be filled with the grit of judgment. What was once a source of pleasure becomes the locus of pain. This is the law of the harvest, woven into the fabric of God's moral universe. You reap what you sow, and the harvest of deceit is a mouthful of gravel.
Application
The application of this proverb is as broad as the human experience of temptation. We are confronted daily with opportunities to acquire some form of "bread" through deceit. It might be a small exaggeration on a resume, cutting a corner on a job to increase the profit margin, or consuming lustful images in secret. In the moment, it promises sweetness, a quick and easy satisfaction.
This proverb calls us to be long-term thinkers. Before you take a bite of that bread, you must ask yourself, "And then what?" You must, by faith in God's Word, taste the gravel that is coming. You must see the pain, the shame, and the judgment that is packed into that sweet morsel. This is what it means to walk by faith and not by sight. Sight sees the bread. Faith sees the gravel.
And for those of us who have already eaten the bread and are now chewing on the gravel of our past sins, the gospel offers the only solution. We come to God with our mouths full of the grit and shame of our foolishness, and we confess it. We admit that the bread was sweet, and we were fools to eat it. And in response, Christ does not give us a lecture on dental hygiene. He who is the true Bread of Life, who never once ate the bread of deceit, took a mouthful of the gravel of God's wrath for us on the cross. He drank the dregs of the cup of judgment so that He could offer us living water to wash the grit away, and true bread that satisfies forever. He takes our fraudulent meal and gives us a feast of righteousness in its place.