Proverbs 4:21

The book of Proverbs gives us insights into so many different areas of life. The book gives us instruction on how to live our lives for God. Here is a proverb that gives us insight about how we should respond to God’s Word: 

Proverbs 4:21 (NASBStr)

Do not let them depart from your sight;

 Keep them in the midst of your heart.

Proverbs 4:21 (ESV)

Let them not escape from your sight;

keep them within your heart.

This proverb is the middle proverb of a three-stanza prose of Solomon regarding wisdom.  In each of the three there is a reference to an organ of the body being involved in the retention of the instruction Solomon is providing.  In the previous proverb Solomon referred to the ears.  Here he refers to the eyes and the heart.  In the next proverb he will tell us the positive affect all this has on the body as a whole.   When our organs are absorbed with God's Word our life is complete and our body's whole.   In the above proverb we are instructed to keep Wisdom in our sight at all times.   This may be the most difficult function in our life as Satan keeps flashing shinny objects in front of us to titillate the senses.  Remember, it was the pleasantness of the eye in Eve's experience that caused her to want to the fruit.   When David "saw" Bathsheba he wanted her and fell into adultery.    John warns us in his epistle to be careful of the lust of the eyes (1 John 2:16).   But the eyes are simply a portal to the heart.   Solomon doesn't want us to simply look on the Word, but he wants us to internalize it to the heart.  Solomon doesn't want us to just merely touch the heart, but he wants it in the "tawak" (the midst) of the heart.  The Hebrew word Tawak means anything that is NOT on the outside edge or end.   It is in the center or middle.   We need to take God's Word and allow the Spirit of God to internalize it within us.   That is the only way we can see the results of live mentioned in the next proverb.