Bird's-eye view
This proverb is a sharp, two-pronged spear aimed directly at the heart of human pride. It forbids a particular kind of speech, boasting about the future, and then provides the unanswerable reason: our utter ignorance of it. This is not a prohibition against wise planning, forethought, or diligence. The Bible is full of exhortations to such things. Rather, this is a prohibition against the sin of presumption, the arrogant attitude that treats tomorrow as a possession we already have in our back pocket. It is a fundamental call to creaturely humility, reminding us that we are contingent beings, utterly dependent on the God who holds all of time, and every event within it, in the palm of His sovereign hand. It is the Old Testament precursor to James's famous rebuke of the merchants who plan their business ventures without any reference to the will of God.
The wisdom here is intensely practical. The man who boasts about tomorrow is a fool because he is betting against a house that never loses. He is speaking with an authority he does not possess about a subject he knows nothing about. The wise man, in contrast, understands that the future is God's country. He may make his plans, but he does so with an open hand and a heart that says, "If the Lord wills." This proverb, then, is a foundational piece of wisdom for living in reality, which is to say, living in a world governed not by our ambitions, but by God's decree.
Outline
- 1. The Folly of Presumption (Prov 27:1)
- a. The Command: Do Not Boast (Prov 27:1a)
- b. The Reason: You Do Not Know (Prov 27:1b)
Context In Proverbs
Proverbs 27 is part of a larger collection of "the proverbs of Solomon" (Prov 25:1) and sits within a section that offers miscellaneous, potent observations about life. This particular proverb fits neatly with the book's overarching theme of contrasting the wise man with the fool. The fool is consistently portrayed as proud, self-reliant, and blind to his limitations (Prov 12:15, 26:12). The wise man is humble, teachable, and fears the Lord (Prov 9:10, 15:33). Boasting about tomorrow is textbook foolishness. It ignores the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, and replaces it with a blasphemous confidence in oneself. This verse also connects to other proverbs that emphasize God's sovereignty over human plans, such as, "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps" (Prov 16:9) and "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand" (Prov 19:21).
Key Issues
- The Sin of Presumption
- God's Sovereignty and Human Planning
- The Distinction Between Boasting and Planning
- Creaturely Finitude and Humility
- Living "Deo Volente"
Tomorrow is God's Country
There is a world of difference between a farmer who plans to plant his crop and a farmer who boasts about the harvest he will have. The first is an act of faith and diligence; the second is an act of arrogant presumption. The first man is working within the created order, acknowledging his dependence on realities outside his control like sun and rain. The second man is acting like he is the sun and the rain. He is acting like God.
This proverb is not telling us to sit on our hands. It is telling us to know our place. The sin is not in the planning, but in the boasting. The Hebrew word for "boast" here carries the sense of glorying in something, of putting your trust and confidence in it. When you boast about tomorrow, you are glorying in your own ability to control the future. You are making your five-year plan into an idol. The apostle James gives the inspired commentary on this verse: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit' yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring... Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil" (James 4:13-16). All such boasting is evil because it is a direct assault on the prerogative of God.
Verse by Verse Commentary
1 Do not boast about tomorrow, For you do not know what a day may bring forth.
The verse is a single sentence, a command followed by its rationale. The command is "Do not boast about tomorrow." This is a prohibition against the kind of talk that treats the future as a settled fact, a done deal, a territory that you have already conquered and mapped out. It is the language of the rich fool in the parable, who said to his soul, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry" (Luke 12:19). God's response to him was, "Fool! This night your soul is required of you." The man had counted all his chickens, but he had not counted on God. This is the essence of boasting about tomorrow. It is counting your chickens before they have hatched, and more than that, it is acting as though you are the one who makes chickens hatch.
The reason given is as simple as it is profound: "For you do not know what a day may bring forth." Our knowledge is bound by the present. The future is a complete unknown. A man might go to bed a king and wake up a corpse. He might start the day a millionaire and end it a beggar. A single day can contain a birth and a death, a wedding and a war, a promotion and a pink slip. The day "brings forth" these events as a mother gives birth. We do not control the process, and we cannot know the outcome. To speak confidently about what we will do tomorrow is to be like a man describing the facial features of a child who has not yet been conceived. It is absurdity. It is blindness. It is the talk of a fool.
Application
So how are we to live? Are we to drift aimlessly, making no plans at all? Not in the slightest. The sluggard who refuses to plan and work is condemned throughout the book of Proverbs. The application is not passivity, but humble, dependent activity. We are to be like the men of Issachar, who "had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do" (1 Chron 12:32). We are to plan, to work, to build, to invest, to save, and to strive. But we are to do it all with a profound and abiding sense of our own limitations and God's total sovereignty.
In practice, this means holding our plans loosely. It means our prayers should be filled with petitions for wisdom and guidance, not with demands and declarations. It means our speech should be seasoned with humility. The old phrase Deo Volente, "God willing," should be more than a quaint expression; it should be the genuine posture of our hearts. We plan the meeting for Tuesday, D.V. We start building the house in the spring, D.V. We hope to see the grandchildren for Christmas, D.V.
Ultimately, this proverb pushes us to the gospel. The only reason we can have any real confidence about tomorrow is because of what Jesus Christ accomplished yesterday. He died and rose again, securing a future for His people that no turn of events can ever threaten. Our ultimate hope is not in our plans for tomorrow, but in His promises for eternity. The Christian does not boast in what he will do tomorrow. He boasts in what Christ has already done for him. Because of the cross, we can face an unknown future with a known and sovereign God, and that is the only security worth having.