Hated Instruction

‘And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed.’ She will bring you down in remorse and physical suffering. In this remorse, you will become awakened to your foolishness (5:12-13).

‘Mourn’ [Hebrew: naham] is the most excessive kind of mourning because of physical suffering.

‘Body’ [Hebrew: she’er] its root, sha’ar refers to the remains of anything. Here it applies to what is left of the diseased body of a man brought down to death by a life of debauchery.

‘How have I hated instruction.’ Those who live with their consequences and in lives that are broken and sometimes beyond repair because of continuous iniquities are guilty of hating instruction. They don’t follow any godly advice (20:18; Ps. 1:1) and hate to ask for it, for they are almost always wise in their own eyes (3:7; Rom. 11:25). God’s Word is perfect in converting the soul and it makes the simple wise (Ps. 19:7). It is the Wisdom we should hear, walk in and obey (8:32,34; Ps. 119:2).

‘I was almost in all evil.’ Literally, I soon became an evil man. To follow in the ways of those who do not serve God always leads to apostasy (1Jn. 2:15-17).