Always-active fear of the LORD blesses a man, while a hardened heart leads to calamity.
Two interior postures are contrasted in Proverbs 28:14: How blessed is the man who fears always, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity (v. 14). Solomon here names the right kind of trembling.
How blessed is the man who fears always. The fear named here is not anxiety. It is the careful ordering of life under God’s authority that Proverbs has commended throughout. The man who keeps that fear active, always, lives blessedly. The fear keeps him careful, humble, and attentive.
The opposite posture is hardness: He who hardens his heart will fall into calamity. The man who has set aside the proper fear, who proceeds without humility, who assumes his own competence is sufficient, is on the way to disaster. Pharaoh's repeatedly hardened heart in Exodus is the long-form illustration. The verse encourages the wise reader to maintain the right kind of trembling at all times.
Proverbs 28:14
14 How blessed is the man who fears always,
But he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity.
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Proverbs 28:14 meaning
Two interior postures are contrasted in Proverbs 28:14: How blessed is the man who fears always, but he who hardens his heart will fall into calamity (v. 14). Solomon here names the right kind of trembling.
How blessed is the man who fears always. The fear named here is not anxiety. It is the careful ordering of life under God’s authority that Proverbs has commended throughout. The man who keeps that fear active, always, lives blessedly. The fear keeps him careful, humble, and attentive.
The opposite posture is hardness: He who hardens his heart will fall into calamity. The man who has set aside the proper fear, who proceeds without humility, who assumes his own competence is sufficient, is on the way to disaster. Pharaoh's repeatedly hardened heart in Exodus is the long-form illustration. The verse encourages the wise reader to maintain the right kind of trembling at all times.