To deliver thee from the way of the evil man. The first special advantage resulting from the protecting guardianship of discretion and understanding. From the way of the evil man; properly, from an evil way; Hebrew, מִדֶּרֶךְ רָע (midarek ra), not necessarily, though by implication, connected with man, as in the Authorized Version.
רָע (ra), "evil," "wicked," in an ethical sense, is an adjective, as in Jeremiah 3:16 ( לֵב רָע, lev ra), "an evil heart;" cf. the LXX; ἀπὸ ὁδοῦ κακῆς; the Vulgate, Targum, and Arabic, a vid mala, and the Syriac, a viis pravis.
"Way," is here used in the sense of "conduct," and the evil way is a line of conduct or action which is essentially wicked or evil. The teacher has already Warned youth against the temptations and dangers of the way of evil men in Proverbs 1:10-15; he now shows that discretion, arising from wisdom being resident in the heart, will be a sufficient safeguard against its allurements.
From the man that speaketh froward things. Perverse utterances are here brought in contradistinction to the evil way or froward conduct. Man ( אִשׁ, ish) is here used generically, as the representative of the whole class of base and wicked men, since all the following verbs are in the plural, Froward things.
The word תַּהְפֻכוֹּת (tah)pucoth), here translated "froward things," is derived from the root רףּ (haphak), "to turn," "to pervert," and should be translated "perverseness." Perverseness is the wilful misrepresentation of that which is good and true.
The utterances are of a distorted and tortuous character. The word, only found in the plural, is abstract in form, and is of frequent, though not of exclusive, occurrence in the Proverbs. It is attributed to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 32:20.
It is met with again in such expressions as "the mouth of perverseness," Authorized Version "froward mouth" (Proverbs 8:13); "the tongue of perverseness," "froward tongue," Authorized Version (Proverbs 10:31); "the man of perverseness," "froward man," Authorized Version (Proverbs 16:28).
What is here said of wicked men is attributed to drunkards in Proverbs 23:33, "Thine heart shall utter perverse things." The expression finds its explanation in Proverbs 6:13, Proverbs 6:14. The spirit which indulges in this perverseness is stubborn, scornful, self-willed, and rebellious, and it is from such a spirit that discretion is a preservative.
In Job 5:13 it is said that "the counsel of the froward is carried headlong" (see also 2 Samuel 22:27; Psalms 18:26; Psalms 101:4). The LXX. rendering of this word is μηδὲν πιστόν, "nothing trustworthy," which is amplified in the Arabic, quod nullam in se continet veritatem, "that which contains in itself no truth."