An Unexpected Word Search

I’m always interested in words. Perhaps it comes with being a writer, but Mom was into words, too. She loved playing Scrabble and excelled at Crossword. I enjoy Word Search.

While writing I often refer to a dictionary or a thesaurus, but I didn’t expect to do that on my quest for a proverb today. I was enjoying an overview of chapter seventeen when one word called a halt to my thoughts.

The word was detestable. Not the word itself, but the way it described a couple of things detestable to God. This show-stopper was Proverbs 17:15, NLT: Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent - - - both are detestable to the LORD.

Anybody who joined me on this month’s quest for a personal daily proverb might remember that Proverbs 6:16 says, “There are six things the LORD hates - - - no, seven things he detests.”  All seven are listed, yet it didn’t stop me in my tracks like today’s simple two-liner.

I reviewed Proverbs 6:16 and decided the word hate softened the blow a little. I wasn’t too far off. I took time for a detestable word search and something called vocabulary.com turned up below another search claiming that the words hate and detestable are interchangeable. Hate is more common, but detest was considered an expression of such powerful dislike that no other word would do.

Some people read through the Bible each year in a different translation. Mom used to do that. I prefer to use a translation in studies for a few years. I’m currently using a *New Living Translation (NLT).

Perhaps your Bible translation says, "abomination, abhorrent, repulsive, or hateful." The idea is the same as detestable. Not one of these words indicates something in which God delights. Clearly, there are some things that God neither desires nor takes any pleasure in. 

I became interested in finding other things that are detestable to God, or that God detests. As I quickly reviewed the previous chapters of Proverbs, I noticed that some of the detestable things listed in Proverbs 6:16-19 are repeated individually in two-line Proverbs in the chapters that follow.

Life improvement comes with reading the Bible to learn. It’s not as rewarding when you just read a chapter so you can mark it off your list.

Remember Jesus’ instructions:  Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength (Mark 12:30). Happy reading!

*NLT is the New Living Translation/Life Application Study Bible copyright 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (Available wherever books are sold, or check christianbooks.com)

Photo from Pixabay: Bible, Book, Literature, by kevron2001.