Proverbs 6:16

Proverbs 6:16, in plain English

Here are six (actually seven) things that God absolutely hates because they strike at the very heart of what He values: honesty, harmony, humility, and care for others.

Why it's here

The teacher is now giving a numerical saying—a common wisdom form where you say "six things" then list seven, which creates emphasis on the final, most important item. This teaches that God isn't indifferent to how people behave. Certain things actively repel Him because they're contrary to His character.

Who's speaking

The wisdom teacher, speaking with authority about what God's values actually are.

Where it sits in the story

This list connects directly to what the teacher just described: the wicked person embodies these very things. It shows that the consequences described in verse 15 aren't arbitrary punishment; they're the natural outworking of living contrary to how God has designed reality to work.

The scholarly reading

The LORD hates six things—indeed, seven are detestable to Him—and then the sage catalogs abominable deeds that violate God's ordering.

Language and setting

The 'x + 1' numerical formulation (six/seven, also appearing in 30:15-16, 18-19, 21-23, 29-31) is a rhetorical device common in Ugaritic and Mesopotamian literature. It creates a sense of comprehensive yet ever-expanding evil. The move from 'hates' (sone) to 'detestable' (toeabah, the strongest Hebrew term for ritual/moral abomination) suggests intensification. The specification 'the LORD hates' grounds moral taxonomy in divine character—this is not mere social convention but cosmic order. Scholars like Tremper Longman note this represents theodicy from the perspective of divine preference and disgust, not arbitrary command.

Voice

The sage, now connecting individual character studies to divine evaluation.

Significance

This moves beyond prudential wisdom into prophetic concern with divine values. The linkage of this verse to the preceding character studies suggests that the wicked man's discord-sowing and deception embody what God finds detestable. This prefigures the New Testament's grounding of ethics in God's character: 'Beloved, do not imitate what is evil' (3 John 11), rooted ultimately in the God whose 'character is light, in him there is no darkness at all' (1 John 1:5).

14With deceit in his heart he devises evil; he continually sows discord.

15Therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly; in an instant he will be shattered beyond recovery.

16There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to Him:

Read all of Proverbs 6 — Go to the ant, you sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. Nature teaches what lectures can't.