Keep Your Sphere In Check

*A king *that sifts out *the wicked *is wise; *he circles back *over them *with a wheel. (mast)

Proverbs 20:26

A wise king sifts out the wicked, and brings the threshing wheel over them. (NKJV)

*[A king] literally, a king. Solomon is not referring to himself. Nor is he referring to Christ. There is no definite article to single out any particular king. But as the verb stem is tied to this king’s action, it causes an effect upon his identity. The king who desires to be wise must carry out this action. If he wants to be known for being wise, he must perform this deed. So this proverb blesses any king who seeks to be wise. But what is the opposite effect in failing to exercise this action? A foolish king allows the wicked to choke out the righteous (Pr.29:12). He doesn’t put the wicked to good use (Pr.29:26). Instead of exposing the wicked, he praises them (Ecc.9:17; Rom.1:32). He lets them lead out his chariot like horses bred for honor (Rom.2:1-11). He dresses and puffs them up with flattery, painting their countenance with fantasy by parading their vain dreams as his own. So then, a king who first does not thresh out his own wickedness will not be wise (Pr.28:16; Matt.7:5). He will be a blind king being led by blind men leading a blind nation to their eternal destruction (Matt.15:13-14). He ignores the wisdom of the righteous to wear the title of king in the contentment of his foolishness by loving his own folly (Ecc.7:19). Because he loves not himself to be wise, he cannot love his own kingdom (Lk.14:26; Mk.12:28-31).

*[that sifts out] literally, to beat out in the wind. After the wheat is threshed or stricken, it is tossed up into the wind to scatter and be separated as wheat from the tares; the good seed from the impure seed. The impure seed is lighter and easily scattered away in the wind (Pr.28:1). That’s the sense by which a king is made wise through the actions and decrees he performs from his rule. He builds a reputation of wisdom for himself that scatters by the wind of the prince and power of the air (Eph.2:2). He sows fear into the heart and mind of the wicked as a result of his actions and ordinances (James 2:19; Matt.8:28-34). He is not lazy in carrying them out (Acts 5:1-14). His wisdom remains as a righteous people who honor his rule and seek the security within his borders (Pr.28:12; 29:2; Lk.7:35). They bless him for his wise choices and decrees (Pr.14:34; 21:21). His wisdom builds up the walls of his kingdom’s security with honor (Pr.14:32). Like Solomon, his wisdom is carried in the wind a great distance to foreign lands (1Kgs.10:1-10).

*[the wicked] straightforwardly, the wicked. It cannot be any plainer. The king’s wisdom is carried away by the wicked (Acts 19:13-18). Though he is despised and unappreciated for his wisdom by the wicked, it is still carried and sown far and wide into foreign kingdoms where the wicked have sought refuge from his torments (Mk.5:7). Even the tares of this wise king’s kingdom rise to the ears of the rulers that neighbor him (2Chr.9:23). Since these rulers also seek to be wise, they go about to inquire of the enemy that blew these tares into their fields by the power of the wind (Jn.3:7-8; 1Kgs.4:34).

*[is wise] literally, the state or result of the king’s labor. This adjective describes the condition of the king that came of him as a result of sifting out the wicked (Matt.25:26-30). But this is carried back to the king by these neighboring rulers who have come to inquire about the king (Matt.25:16). And so the king finds his own wisdom returning to him by the inquisition of the neighboring rulers (Matt.25:27). They have come seeking answers from their enemy about these tares blowing in the wind from the direction of the king’s kingdom (Matt.13:36-39). And so this king is wise because he reaps where he has not sown (Lk.19:22), for there is a charge to obtain this wisdom and to share in its benefits (Pr.23:23; Lk.19:23). Because these rulers are laboring to be wise (Lk.19:18-19), the king extends the protection of his borders by educating his neighbors with a treaty of thanksgiving, trading knowledge for peace (1Kgs.5:12; Lk.19:24-27).

*[he circles back] literally, to turn back. But as this verb is in conjunction with the wicked and a wheel, it is a return to the king’s original judgment (Ps.14:2-4; 53:3; 143:2; Isa.41:26-29). But now, by extension of an additional tool, known as the wheel, there is greater judgment (Mk.6:11; Matt.11:23; Rev.2:11; 20:14). So whether this is a threshing wheel or a chariot wheel symbolizing judgment, the same precedent now circles back over the wicked to be sifted again and cast further away from the presence of peace in these neighboring borders of the king’s wisdom (Matt.8:12; 22:13; 25:30-46). But now, the judgment is even more severe and greater in degree by the size and honor of the threshing tool (Matt.25:46). What was first beat out with a rod is now crushed out by the power and weight of the twofold force of the wheel of judgment (Ps.2:9), going back over the backs of these wicked tares that labor to choke out the good seed (Rev.19:15; 20:7-10; Matt.13:30). So the wise king is demonstrating diligence by working hard against these wicked weeds that spitefully sprout up in the fields of his harvest of peace and continue to make war on the righteous (Isa.57:1; Ps.1:4-6; 2:1-12). This wise king sends these bordering rulers back to guard their own fields (and ultimately his) being at the center of theirs with the addition of chariots traded out of his industry (Joel 3:9-15) and to thresh their wheat with a more efficient wheel of fortune born out of their ingenuity (Isa.2:1-4; Mic.4:1-5). Therefore any king that seeks to follow this image and pattern of wise trade turns back many sinners from destruction through the fear of the Lord (Isa.14:24; 28:5-6; 2Kgs.19:27-28; James 5:19-20; Pr.1:7, 29; 2:5; 8:13; 9:10; 10:27; 14:26-27; 16:6; 19:23).

*[over them] conjunctively, over the wicked. Through the trade of this wisdom, the king not only expands the protection of his own borders but profits from the innovations of his own kingdom, serving as a commonwealth (Eph.2:12). This buries the wicked under his plow and binds them in sheaves to be burned (Jn.15:6; Ps.129:3; 1Sam.8:12). These wicked slaves serve no purpose but to increase the honor of the king’s wisdom (Rom.9:19-23). Their wickedness can rise no higher than the king’s boot heel as they remain crushed under the weight of his wrath (Heb.2:6-9; 1Cor.15:28; 1Pet.3:22; Phil.2:10; Rom.14:11). Therefore their only value is to magnify the king’s purpose in destroying the seeds of their disobedience (Lk.1:17; 1Pet.2:7-8). They serve no purpose of their own except to satisfy justice in their destruction (Col.3:6; Eph.2:2-3; 5:6; 1Thess.5:4-5; Col.1:13; Eph.5:11; 6:12; 2Pet.2:4, 17).

*[with a wheel] conjunctively, a wheel. But what kind of wheel? I don’t think we can dogmatically know for sure. I think there is room here for us to imagine a threshing wheel, being found in the context of the verb ‘to scatter,’ but it is also under the context of the king’s judgment. So I believe both-and can be applied here. Again, there is no direct article singling out a particular wheel, nor is there any additional adjective to define the wheel. It is just a wheel. It’s not even two wheels. Which leads me to believe it is more likely describing a threshing wheel. But even that is hard to make a definitive judgment because the verb means ‘to scatter’ only nineteen times out of thirty-nine and is used only twice in the context of winnowing (Isa.28:27-29), and even in that context, there is the additional adjectival noun in construct with the wheel(s). Nevertheless, it is unmistakably a wheel.

But I would like to suggest that this is more than a natural wheel with natural applications. Solomon isn’t offering Chinese proverbs to be handed down to his heritage. No, he is offering spiritual proverbs that have spiritual applications according to the Word of God in their eternal inheritance (Gal.3:18; Eph.1:11, 14, 18; 5:5). So I believe this wheel illustrates a spiritual sphere that begins with this king who seeks to be wise. A strong authority is often associated with having all sides of his direction: his repentance, guarded or covered. Therefore this is a wisdom that is a result of directional repentance that leads to eternal life. We see this in the makings of the church of the new covenant (or of the new commandment)’s foundational sphere, in the appointments of her authoritative elders at the strategic spots of Israel, recorded for us in the book of Acts (Acts 1:8). So this proverb is granting a spiritual principle for [any] ruler to trust in when establishing an authoritative reputation by the wisdom of the cross of Jesus Christ (1Tim.3:1-13). This is for a ruler who seeks to examine his heart by true wisdom and establish a sphere (or circle) of protection that travels around him on all sides (like a wheel). That’s right (a wheel)—a singular wheel (Ezk.10:13).

Ezekiel’s vision of the wheel paints a pattern (or image) of this spiritual realm of authority being removed from over the city of Jerusalem. Essentially, God was removing his peace from Israel because his authoritative reputation was of greater importance than guarding the city that had been living (in denial) of God’s higher authority (1Tim.6:20). Ezekiel begins his description of a wheel within four other wheels hovering and moving over the earth with a glory that was even above the living creatures that were the faces of the wheels (Ezk.1:15). The internal wheel, I believe, is a symbolic description of the Holy Spirit joining the four faces or (heads of authority) of the spheres together from all sides (or from the four corners) to guard the righteousness of God and his chosen people (Ezk.1:16; 10:13), which would move in any direction that the glory of above them would direct the spheres to go (Ezk.1:19-28; 11:22). While the temple of Jerusalem was a building that could nor was never intended to move (Ps.93:1; 125:1; Pr.12:3; Isa.28:16; 1Cor.3:11; 2Tim.2:19; Heb.11:8-10), the original intent of (the tabernacle) was so that it could move wherever the cloud of glory would direct it (Heb.12:25-29; Num.9:15-23; Dan.7:9), and so that is what the Spirit of God is taking the liberty to do because of the sins of Jerusalem (2Cor.3:17). Because they have forsaken the headship of Yahweh, God is removing his spiritual (and physical) protection from the city to ‘shake it’ (Ezk.10:18; 11:17-25; Matt.27:51).

So our [spiritual] application here is to keep our sphere in check by using the Word of God to sift out the wicked from the presence of the Lord, for the Word of God is the spiritual tool that the Holy Spirit uses to separate the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats (Heb.4:12). The Word is to be the center wheel that drives the chain that pulls along the other wheels. Like a gearbox, the center sprocket drives the other gear units. That is what the Word of God is to the spiritual man possessed by the understanding of the Spirit of the Holy One (Ezk.39:7; Jer.51:5; Isa.43:15; 48:17; 54:5; 60:9; Ps.16:10; Pr.9:10). He is the face of an external and earthly wheel under the power and influence of the Holy One of Israel’s glory; a king prepared to walk in the wisdom of the cross who trusts in resurrection life (Eph.2:10). Are you seeking to be an image of the face of Christ’s wheel as his glory is promised to fill the whole earth (Dan.2:35; Ps.72:19; Gen.35:11)? Therefore by the wisdom of this wheel, the wicked are turned back into wheat like wine from water (Jn.2:9-10). They aren’t just scattered tares remaining void and empty like a Chinese proverb but are promised to return to their Creator in the glory of his perfect design (Isa.55:11; Matt.26:31), bearing the interest of his fruit in the multiplication of many wheels within that wheel of his divine image as one new creation and as vessels of his honor (Rom.9:21; Matt.3:8; 25:27; 2Cor.5:17; Gal.6:15).