Commentary - Proverbs 22:13

Bird's-eye view

Proverbs 22:13 is a masterful and humorous sketch of the sluggard's mindset. It reveals that laziness is not merely a matter of inaction but is propped up by a wildly inventive and irrational imagination. The sluggard, in order to justify his idleness, conjures up the most absurd and catastrophic excuses. He does not say that it is drizzling, or that he has a headache; he says there is a man-eating lion in the public square. This hyperbole serves to shut down all argument. Who could reasonably ask a man to go to work under such conditions? The verse, therefore, is not about urban wildlife management but about the psychology of self-deception. It exposes the foolishness that lies at the root of sloth, which is a moral and spiritual condition that distorts reality to accommodate its own lethargy. It is a failure of faith, courage, and common sense, all in one pithy line.

The saying is a snapshot of how sin makes us stupid. The sluggard is not trying to fool his neighbors as much as he is trying to fool himself. His excuse is so over the top that its true purpose is revealed: not to describe a genuine danger, but to provide a justification for staying on his couch that is so absolute it cannot be challenged. This is the essence of rationalization. The verse stands as a perpetual warning against the temptation to allow our desires, in this case the desire for ease, to rewrite the rules of reality and to christen cowardice as prudence.

Outline

Context In Proverbs

This verse is one of many in Proverbs that paint a detailed and unflattering portrait of the sluggard (in Hebrew, the atsel). The sluggard is a stock character in wisdom literature, serving as a negative example of what a wise and godly life is not. He is too lazy to bring his hand from the dish to his mouth (Prov 19:24; 26:15). He is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can give a sensible answer (Prov 26:16). His field is overgrown with thorns and weeds, a visible testament to his internal character (Prov 24:30-34). His desire for things he will not work for is what kills him (Prov 21:25). Proverbs 22:13 fits squarely within this theme, adding the characteristic of ludicrous excuse-making to the sluggard's resume. It stands alongside Proverbs 26:13, which is nearly identical: "The sluggard says, 'There is a lion in the road! A lion is in the open square!'" The repetition of this saying underscores its importance as a key diagnostic of the lazy man's heart: he is a fountain of self-justifying nonsense.

Key Issues

Lions on the Loose

There is a profound difference between godly prudence and the sluggard's paranoia. Prudence assesses real risks and takes sensible precautions. The sluggard's paranoia invents risks out of whole cloth to justify doing nothing. The problem is not that the sluggard is risk-averse; the problem is that he is work-averse. The lion is simply the story he tells himself so he can stay in bed with a clear conscience.

Notice the nature of the excuse. It is not a small or debatable problem. It is an immediate, lethal, and indisputable threat. A lion. In the streets. This is the tell-tale sign of rationalization. When a man is trying to justify his sin, he does not typically reach for a flimsy reason. He reaches for a reason so compelling that it slams the door on any further discussion. The husband caught in adultery does not say he was just a little lonely; he constructs a grand narrative about how his wife has been emotionally abandoning him for a decade. The employee who steals does not say he was a bit greedy; he explains how the company has been systematically exploiting him. And the sluggard who does not want to go to the office says there is a lion outside. The size of the excuse is often a reliable indicator of the size of the sin it is trying to hide.

Verse by Verse Commentary

13 The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside; I will be killed in the streets!”

The verse breaks down into a simple cause and effect, as seen through the distorted lens of the lazy man. First, the declaration of the problem, and second, the deduction of the consequence.

The sluggard says... This is what he does. He talks. He declares. He pronounces. The wise man works, but the sluggard holds a press conference from his bedroom. His energy is not channeled into productive labor but into creative avoidance. His mouth works overtime so that the rest of him does not have to work at all.

There is a lion outside... The Hebrew word for lion here is shachal, referring to a fierce, mature lion. This is not a cub or a stray cat. He has imagined the worst-case scenario. And where is this lion? "Outside" or "in the street." This is the key. Lions belong in the wilderness, not in the city square. The excuse is, on its face, utterly preposterous. That is the point of the proverb. The sluggard's mind is not governed by reality but by his ruling desire for inactivity. He will believe, and expect you to believe, the most fantastic tales if they will get him out of his responsibilities. This is the logic of unbelief. It strains out the gnat of a small difficulty and swallows the camel of an absurd fantasy.

I will be killed in the streets! Here is the conclusion he draws. The presence of the lion means certain death for him if he ventures out. He is the victim. He is the potential martyr. He has successfully reframed his laziness as a prudent survival instinct. He is not avoiding work; he is avoiding being mauled. This is the heart of his self-deception. He has turned a vice into a virtue. He can now feel good about staying home because it is the only sensible thing to do. He has forgotten that the real danger is not the imaginary lion outside, but the very real poverty that is coming for him "like an armed man" (Proverbs 24:34).

Application

We are all tempted to be sluggards, and so we must all be on guard against inventing lions. The lions take many forms. For the student, the lion is the fear that the exam is too hard, so he does not study. For the entrepreneur, the lion is the unstable economy, so he does not start the business. For the evangelist, the lion is the certainty of rejection, so he does not open his mouth. For the man who needs to have a hard conversation with his wife, the lion is her anticipated emotional reaction, so he remains silent. In every case, we imagine a catastrophic obstacle in order to justify our disobedience and inaction.

The gospel is the great lion-slayer. The central problem of humanity was that there was a real lion in the street. That lion was sin, death, and the righteous wrath of God. We were all cowering inside, with very good reason, because to go out meant certain destruction. But Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, did not make excuses. He went out into the street, onto the hill of Calvary, and He faced the roaring lion of our sin and guilt. He was killed in the streets of Jerusalem so that we would not have to be. Because He faced the real lion for us, we are now free and empowered to face down all the imaginary lions of our own making.

The cure for the sluggard's heart is not a motivational speech or a new productivity app. The cure is a profound grasp of the gospel. When we understand that our salvation is secure, that our work is an offering of gratitude, and that our God is sovereign over every real and imagined threat, we are liberated from the fear that keeps us on the couch. We can get up, go outside, and get to work, confident that even if there were a lion in the street, our God is more than able to handle it.