Mishlei-Proverbs-Chapter Four-The Vision of Speech

My son, listen to my words, bend your ear to my sayings. Let them not slip from your eyes, guard them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.

More than anything watched guard your heart,

for from it are the ways out to life.

Put twisted speech away from you

and keep lips’ contortion far from you.

Let your eyes look in front,

and your gaze straight before you.

Level the pathway of your foot,

and all your ways will be sound.

Do not veer to the right or the left.

Keep your foot away from evil.

“Who is the man who desires life, and loves days that he may see good? Guard your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceitfully. Turn from evil and do good, peace and pursue it. The eyes of God are toward the righteous, and His ears are open to their cries. The face of God is set against evildoers to exercise from Earth, their memory (Psalms 34:13–17).” Although are usually associated these verses with the laws of speech, when we closely examine them we will find that they are more focus on vision that and on speech: “love is days that he may see good,” “the eyes of God are toward,” “the face of God.”

We are taught that a person who desires to be able to focus on the good in life so that he may love every day that he lives, must be in by guarding his tongue from evil. The way we see the determines the way we see the world.

King Solomon saw the world through God’s speech: “For You have preserved for Your servant, my father David, all that You have spoken to him. You spoke with Your mouth and with Your power fulfilled this very day (I Kings 8:24).” Solomon continues to speak of God’s speech: “And now, God, Lord of Israel, preserve Your promise to Your servant, my father David, that You spoke to him, saying, ‘ There shall not cease from you a man to sit before Me upon the throne of Israel, provided that your children preserve their way, to go before Me, as you have gone before Me.’ So now, Lord of Israel, cause Your word that You spoke to Your servant my father David to come true (25–26).” Solomon is described how he is viewing the world through God’s speech. He understands that our speech not only reflects our vision; it shapes our vision.

This is why these, the concluding verses of this chapter of Proverbs. This is why Solomon’s instructions regarding speech are immediately followed by, “Let your eyes look in front, and your gaze straight before you.”