Does Your Sound Go At Least A Thousand Fathoms Deep?

*Fathoms of the depths are *the purpose in a man’s heart, *and now only a man of understanding *will draw out *his repentance. (MAST)

Proverbs 20:5 (NKJV)

5 Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, But a man of understanding will draw it out.

*[Fathoms of the depths are] literally, deeps of waters. But the proverbial context is defining for us what a man is without a Savior (Ezk.13:3). Both terms here are plural. A fathom represents a “measure of water,” and these measurements are stacked innumerably on top of each other defining a great depth, but the adjective is also describing multiple measurements in depths upon depths in the search for the core of a man (Rev.2:24). Therefore it is fathoms upon fathoms and depths upon depths that lead the description of the (singular) purpose that is in the lazy man’s heart (Rom.8:14,26-27). Solomon, however, is not making any comparison here. It’s intended to go beyond comparison, for the depth of one man’s sin alone against the “infinite” Creator cannot be compared to anything created. Just because the majority of translations have inserted the word “like” doesn’t mean Solomon had intentions for a comparison. This proverb is a descriptive statement of fact concerning the (spiritual) state of a man who has no hope of saving himself with his own labor (Rom.3:10-18). Solomon, orating by the Spirit, has previously judged that the man without the Spirit is a lazy man even in all the multitude of his labors combined with every other lazy man (Gen.6:1-8). The whole of man is spiritual laziness (Ezk.37:11). Laziness is the final verdict for every man without God (Ps.10:4), for as in our present context, he doesn’t even have the strength to swim to the surface of the flood that plunges him in the depth of the sea (Isa.40:17). Every act of his own so-called righteousness is another measurement that plummets him into the depths of the vast ocean of sin (Isa.64:6). The purpose of the lazy man is to drink in the waters of the flood to anchor him down like a plumb line so he can measure the emptiness of his worth (Rev.12:15-16;Hos.5:10;Isa.28:2;Job.15:16). These deep waters cover him to restrain his purpose to the earth (1Pet.4:4). The lazy man’s purpose can rise no higher than the human spirit that drowns him in the depths of these waters (Lk.17:27). All his searching plumbs the depths of the vast expanse and void of the darkness of the deep, which provides no light nor understanding for his eternal good (Matt.16:26;Ecc.1:14;2:11,26;3:19;4:4,8;8:10). He searches endlessly for hope in the nothingness of his own existence and continues to return to himself void (Jer.4:19-31). All his skill and wisdom is wasted on what is recycled in the dust (Jer.10:8;18:15). He offers nothing of eternal value to the next generation of treasure seekers, for his heart is unsearchable in the depth of these seas (Jer.17:9). His heart is measured by the number of fathoms it takes to reach the lowest valley of the ocean where the pressure crushes his skull, and the worms feast on his decay (Mk.9:44,46,48). That’s how Solomon intends for us to view the condition of the man without the Spirit of understanding. He is hopeless to save himself.

*[the purpose in a man’s heart] literally, a counsel. Now this “counsel” is a singular Hebrew noun that is feminine to a man’s heart. This means “the decision” that this man has made is enslaved to his own character (Jn.8:34). This man is a slave to himself, and the counsel that is in him leaves him drowning in deep waters (Ps.69:2). He is a fool, and his counsel leads him to choose sin (Gen.3:6). Therefore his purpose is to die in his sin as long as he continues to choose his own counsel (Jn.8:24). He is enslaved to serve his own purpose, which cannot stand in the counsel of God (Mk.3:26;Lk.16:15;Gal.2:15-16;Rom.2:12-16). So this is not God’s purpose in the man, but God’s purpose for the man (Rom.9:17-23). All things were created for the glory of God, but God’s purpose (in a man) is to enjoy fellowship with God (Rom.14:17). As long as a man is enslaved to his own purpose, he cannot enjoy fellowship with God, even while he glorifies the justice of God in his own destruction (Phil.2:9-11,17-18). Sin is rooted deep in a lazy man’s heart (Pr.18:4;James 1:26;3:5-8;1Pet.3:10). That is what Solomon is describing with the language of a sailor in the measure of a man’s heart. A man’s sin is so deep; it is beyond weighing out (Dan.5:27). The lazy man’s sin is so heavy and makes him so dense that it anchors his soul to the ocean floor (Job 41:24), and yet he is safer than the faith that floats like a dead fish upon the surface filled with the bones that the children of ignorance choke on (Mk.9:42;James 2:19). He doesn’t have the breath of God in his lungs to escape the burial of sins for which Christ was buried (1Cor.15:4). He cannot nor will rise from the these fathoms without the baptism and infusion of the Holy Spirit (Rom.6:4).

*[and now only a man of understanding] literally, now a man of understanding. The construct is emphatic to the emphasis of a particular type of man (Gen.1:2). Now here is the contrast. This man is not like the other man whose purpose is the flood of destruction. This man has a fellowship in the understanding of God and has light in the heart to offer the man drowning in darkness (Jn.11:9-11;Phil.2:15). This man has the eternal rope to plumb the depths of the lazy man’s sin and to draw him up from his destruction to the surface that he may breathe in new counsel for a new purpose. Only his sails are set to the winds that blow him on a course not mapped out by the mind of the lazy man. This man seeks the depths of the riches of the knowledge of God (Rom.11:33;Col.2:2). This holy man searches for the mind of Christ in the deepest things of God (1Cor.2:9-16). The understanding of this man has no hope in what a man is not … in the things of God, but has all hope in what Christ is to us … in God (Rom.11:15;2Cor.5:19). Christ, the Holy One of Israel is the plumb line to measure the heart of a man, and Christ is the eternal rope that draws a man out of this destruction (Ezk.47:1-8).

*[will draw out] literally, to drawdown. The verb here is only painting half of the picture but has its emphasis on how far down this man of understanding is willing to plumb to rescue the heart of the lazy man (Rom.10:7;Eph.4:9-10;Matt.12:40;1Pet.3:18-20). As the measure of the heart of man is as the fathoms of the sea, so far is Christ willing to descend to anchor him in the glories of Calvary (Phil.4:5-8;1Cor.4:1;Lk.8:10). In the Qal stem, it is best understood like a fisherman that wades out his line, but in the Piel stem, it is like a fisherman drawing (lifting) up or (pulling) in his line. Therefore the verb is emphasizing the working in of the Spirit to give spiritual understanding to a conscience that is dead to the treasury that is God’s wisdom (James 3:15). The root form means to be emptied or to hang or dangle down as Saul was "let down" or suspended like a bucket into a well from a wall in Damascus (Acts 9:25). Christ goes down into our depths to work in us a heart of repentance. Therefore there is no drawing up here to show what man must do in response to what God has done (Phil.2:5-13).

*[his repentance] literally, her or (it). The pronoun is feminine but is suffixed to the masculine verb that is acting in conjunction with the man without understanding. Because there is no neuter in the Hebrew, it is antecedent to “the purpose” of the previous man. So by the addition of the “new man” in the construct, the purpose of the “old man” has changed from death to life (Rom.6:6). The previous man’s purpose is changed to that of repentance through the new man (Eph.4:17-24). Because the man of understanding has plumbed the old man’s depths, he is a new man to discover his new purpose (Ps.139:1). The purpose that “now” is (subservient to the Spirit) in him is sanctified (emphatically) to him by the action of this verb (Jn.15:26;16:13;17:17-19;1Pet.1:22). His depths have been waded (measured) out by Christ; his purpose “now” serves the purpose of Christ, as the feminine pronoun subsists from the verbal action of the man of understanding. The first purpose of his destruction has now been transformed to partake of the fellowship and joy of Christ’s action as one new purpose together with God because the purposes are conjoined in God (Rom.15:5-6;Phil.1:27;2Cor.13:11-12;Acts 2:46). In the depths of the lazy man's sin by the purpose and counsel of God to extend divine reason to him (Acts 2:23;20:27;Heb.6:16-20), he is made "to decide" to rise above the waters with repentance unto life. Therefore the counsel of Christ works out a confession of sin (in the likeness of shame and guilt) to bring out times of refreshing and rest in the purpose of God (Acts 3:19;Pr.25:13).