Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity
than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.
Desire without knowledge is not good,
and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.
When a man's folly brings his way to ruin,
his heart rages against the Lord.Proverbs 19:1-3
The contrast in 1 and 2 is between the path of truth and the way of ignorance; but there are other contrasts at least implied. A poor man who lives in integrity adds something to his life, it is rich in the things that matter. The other kind, mentioned in 1a, who is tacitly assumed to be rich or in better circumstances, perhaps through his cleverness or perverseness, is the real fool. He is really without knowledge in the things that matter, however 'clever' he may think himself to be. A man who hasteth with his feet (2b), that is, one who is intent on making short cuts to quick rewards, is one who is very likely to miss the real way of life. In every sphere, this comes to grief. When it does, and the man's folly brings him to ruin (3), it is never his own fault, it is God Who gets the blame. This attitude is as old as Eden: Adam blamed God for his sin -'the woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat' - blaming God has been an inevitable tendency in man ever since. Perhaps we should apply this a little more than we do on the national scene. At the present time we are facing disturbing and disquiet- ing problems, with recurrent crises in the economic and industrial scene. Where does responsibility lie? We blame the government, we blame the unions, we blame the communists - but it does not seem to occur to us that as a nation it is ultimately the way we live, in neglect and forgetfulness of God, that is to blame for our parlous situation, 'Where there is no vision, the people perish' (Proverbs 29:18). This is the lesson above all others that we as a people need desperately to learn.