Hate What God Hates: Proverbs 6:16-19 Explained
Short answer: Proverbs 6:16-19 names seven things Yahweh hates, and the passage is introduced with the words, "There are six things which Yahweh hates; yes, seven which are an abomination to him" (Proverbs 6:16). The list that follows is concrete: proud eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet quick to run to evil, a false witness, and one who stirs up conflict among brothers. Scripture does not treat this as a cold catalogue of vices; it presents it as a portrait of the person God opposes. That is why the same Bible that commands love also commands, "You who love Yahweh, hate evil!" (Psalm 97:10). Hatred of evil is not the opposite of love. It is what love for God and neighbour looks like when evil is real and destructive.
The seven things Yahweh names in Proverbs 6
The passage begins with a numerical saying, a common Hebrew form that builds toward a climax. It says there are six things Yahweh hates, then raises the number to seven, so that the reader waits for the full weight to land. The seventh item is not an afterthought; it is the point the whole list is aiming at. The seven items move outward from the inner life to the outer life and finally to the community: eyes, tongue, hands, heart, feet, a witness, and a troublemaker. This is not random. It traces the way sin actually travels, from a proud glance to a lying word to bloodshed to a divided family or church.
Notice the strength of the language. The text does not say God merely disapproves or finds these things unhelpful. It uses the word abomination, a term reserved for what is detestable and repugnant. This tells us something about God's character: he is not neutral about moral evil. His holiness means he responds to it with settled opposition. For the reader, that is both sobering and clarifying. We are not left to guess what God values. He has told us plainly what he hates, which means we can also know what he loves, since the list is defined against its opposite: humility, truth, innocent life, pure intentions, feet that turn toward good, honest testimony, and peace among brothers.
It helps to see that most of these sins are relational. Only the first item, proud eyes, seems purely internal, and the last, stirring up conflict, seems purely social. But in between, every sin involves another person: a tongue that lies, hands that harm, a heart that plots against someone, feet that rush toward wrongdoing, a witness who testifies falsely. Evil, in this passage, is not an abstract philosophical problem. It is what one human being does to another and to God. That is why the passage should be read personally. We are not meant to nod at a list of other people's sins. We are meant to ask whether any of these seven has found a home in us.
The order also warns us about how sin escalates. A proud heart sees others as beneath us; a lying tongue covers what pride has already committed; hands and feet then carry out what the heart has planned; and finally a false witness and a divider destroy relationships and peace. Very little evil in the world begins at the point of bloodshed. It usually begins in the small, private place where a person decides that God's truth does not apply to them. Proverbs is a book of wisdom, and wisdom here is not merely knowing the right list. It is learning to stop the sequence early, at the eyes and the heart, before the hands and feet ever have a chance to act.
Why hating evil is not opposed to love
Many people today feel a tension when they hear that God hates anything, or that his people are told to hate anything. The tension is real but it is often based on a misunderstanding. Love in Scripture is not a vague warmth toward everything without distinction. It is a committed pursuit of what is truly good for another person. If you genuinely love someone, you must oppose what destroys them. That is why the same chapter of Proverbs can describe both what God loves and what he hates without a contradiction. Hatred of evil is the back side of love for the good, not a rival to it. The person who shrugs at cruelty does not love the victim.
Romans 12:9 holds the two together in a single verse: "Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor that which is evil. Cling to that which is good." The command to abhor evil is not a concession that good people are allowed to be bitter. It is the honest love that refuses to pretend evil is fine. Notice the three verbs: love without hypocrisy, abhor evil, cling to good. Each one depends on the others. Hypocritical love pretends evil is acceptable; genuine love hates what harms. This is the pattern of God himself, who both loves the sinner and is repulsed by the sin, who in Christ both welcomes the guilty and refuses to call guilt innocent. The Christian life is not a choice between being loving and being decisive about evil; it is learning to do both.
That does not mean every instance of hatred is godly. Human hatred is easily self-serving, tribal, and resentful. Psalm 139:21-22 is a real and difficult prayer: "Yahweh, don't I hate those who hate you? Am I not grieved with those who rise up against you?" Even the psalmist's passion for God's honour can slide into personal vengeance. This is why the New Testament's use of hatred language is so important. Revelation 2:6 says, "But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." Jesus commends local churches that hate the deeds, not the people. The target is the work, not the neighbour. That distinction is one of the most important safeguards in this whole topic.
So the question is not whether a Christian may hate, but what and how. Hatred that is genuinely aligned with God is aimed at deeds, not persons; it is grieved rather than gloating; it seeks the good of the offender while refusing to excuse the offence; and it begins with self-examination before it looks at anyone else. Hatred of evil that produces contempt for people has already lost its way. The command in Amos 5:14-15 is clear: "Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so Yahweh, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you say." The command is positive before it is negative. We are first called to seek good, and in that pursuit we learn what it is right to hate.
What the list reveals about God's character
The reason God hates these things is not arbitrary. Each item is incompatible with who he is. He hates proud eyes because he is the God of humility who resists the arrogant. He hates a lying tongue because he is truth itself, and in his presence no lie can stand. He hates hands that shed innocent blood because he is the author and defender of life. He hates a heart that devises wicked schemes because he is pure and righteous in all his intentions. He hates feet that run to evil because he is the God who runs toward the helpless, not toward harm. The list is not a capricious set of preferences; it is a reflection of his holy nature.
This means the passage does more than tell us what to avoid. It gives us a window into the God we worship. The Bible's teaching on God's attributes is often abstract: holiness, justice, truth, life. Proverbs 6:16-19 clothes those attributes in concrete images. God's truth looks like a tongue that does not lie. God's justice looks like hands that do not shed innocent blood. God's purity looks like a heart that does not plot evil. When we read the list carefully, we are not just learning ethics; we are learning what it means that God is who he is. This is the same reason the law of Moses can be summarised in love of God and love of neighbour, because the God who commands is a God of love, truth, and justice.
It is also why the passage should drive us to Christ rather than to despair. If we measure ourselves against these seven, we will all fall short. But the New Testament does not leave us to fix ourselves. It tells us about a person whose eyes were never proud, whose tongue never lied, whose hands never shed innocent blood, whose heart never devised evil, whose feet ran only to do good, whose testimony was always true, and who made peace rather than division. He did this not only as our example but as our substitute, bearing the penalty for the very sins the list names. Reading Proverbs 6 well means letting it lead us to him.
That is also why the passage carries a pastoral word of hope. God's hatred of evil is not a threat to the repentant; it is a reason for their security. If God were indifferent to evil, his covenant promises would be hollow. Because he hates lies and bloodshed and division, he is trustworthy when he promises a world in which none of those things will remain. The church's long hope is not that God will become less serious about evil but that he will finally remove it. Hatred of evil in God's people is a small reflection of the day when every tear is wiped away and no proud eye, lying tongue, or stirring of conflict will mar the new creation.
Hatred of evil and the practice of repentance
If God hates these things, then repentance is not merely feeling sorry. It is agreeing with God's judgment and turning from what he hates. The list in Proverbs 6 is useful for this because it is specific. It is easy to confess in general terms, but wisdom asks sharper questions. Have I allowed my tongue to distort the truth about someone? Have my hands been involved in harm against the vulnerable? Have I harboured a plan in my heart that I would be ashamed for others to see? Have my feet carried me toward wrongdoing while I pretended I was only passing by? Have I created division where God desires peace? These are not questions of morbid introspection; they are the ordinary work of growing in likeness to God.
Repentance also involves changing direction, not just regret. Amos 5:14-15 pairs the command to seek good with a promise of God's presence, and the Hebrew text literally calls for the people to hate evil and love good. Hatred of evil that never moves a person toward good is not the kind of hatred Scripture commands. It is possible to feel strongly against evil in the abstract while remaining comfortable with it in one's own life. The test is practical: do we run toward good with our time, our money, our words, and our attention? Does the evil we say we hate find any foothold in our habits? Repentance takes the list personally and then actually changes something.
The practice of repentance also protects the church from becoming a community of accusation. Jesus warned his disciples about the plank in their own eye before the speck in another's. When the church forgets Proverbs 6 and becomes a place where outrage is abundant but self-examination is rare, it begins to look less like God and more like the world. The point of the list is not to arm us against others but to sanctify us. The church that hates evil well is the church that is quick to confess its own sins, quick to forgive, and slow to marshal outrage against those outside its walls. It is a community formed by grace, not by self-righteousness.
Finally, repentance is not a one-time act but a lifelong orientation. The disciples who followed Jesus in the Gospels were slow learners, and so are we. Growing in hatred of evil is gradual, shaped by Scripture, prayer, and the community of faith. The point is progress, not perfection. When we fail, we return to the cross where God's justice and mercy meet. When we succeed, we give thanks that it is God working in us. The aim is not a scrupulous anxiety but a deeper love for what God loves and a clearer opposition to what he hates, all of which comes to us by grace.
Hostility toward people is not the hatred Scripture commands
One of the most common mistakes in this area is the assumption that hating what God hates licenses hostility toward people. It does not. The list in Proverbs 6 names the proud of eyes, the liar, the shedder of blood, the schemer, the one who stirs up conflict. None of these is a category for us to patrol. They are sins for us to renounce. There is a real difference between opposing a lie and despising the liar, between grieving over harm done to the innocent and treating the offender as beyond hope. Scripture forbids the second while commanding the first. God's own hatred of evil never makes him unwilling to save evildoers.
Psalm 139:21-22 shows how easy it is for sincere believers to blur this line. The psalmist's grief over those who rise up against God is understandable, and the psalm is honest about it. But the psalm is a prayer, not a pattern of behaviour. It brings the anger to God rather than acting on it. That is a crucial model. When we feel the heat of opposition to evil, the first instinct should be to bring it to God in prayer, where he can examine our motives and refine our desires. Venting outrage on others without passing through the presence of God usually produces the kind of hatred the Bible condemns, not the kind it commands.
Jesus is the clearest example. He hated the works of the religious hypocrites, the corruption of the temple, and the oppression of the vulnerable; he also wept over Jerusalem and healed the servant of a man who arrested him. Revelation 2:6 commends the Ephesian church because they hated the works of the Nicolaitans, and the very next verses warn them that they have left their first love. The church can hate evil correctly and still lose its love for Christ if it is not careful. The hatred of works and the love of persons must be held together, and only grace can keep them in balance.
So what does this look like practically? It means we can be clear that false teaching is wrong without treating those who are deceived as worthless. It means we can name abuse, corruption, and injustice without demonising those who are caught in them. It means we can grieve over sin in our own church and in our own hearts more than we grieve over the sins of those outside. It means our opposition to evil should make us more willing to pray, more willing to forgive, and more eager for restoration than for retaliation. That is the kind of hatred that looks like God.
What this means for the church and its witness
Christians are often accused of being judgmental, and sometimes the accusation is fair. But the answer is not to become indifferent to evil. The answer is to become more like God, who hates evil with a settled hatred and loves people with a settled love. A church that can name sin clearly and still welcome repentant sinners is a church that bears a credible witness in a confused world. A church that names sin clearly but hardens its heart against the person has added to the sin. The narrow road runs between those two errors, and it is walked by grace.
This is also why the list in Proverbs 6 belongs in the church's teaching. Some of these sins, especially stirring up conflict among brothers, are devastating to a congregation. Division is not a minor issue if God himself lists it among the seven things he finds detestable. The church that tolerates gossip, false witness, and factions will not enjoy the presence of God as it could. The church that confesses these things, seeks reconciliation, and pursues peace will find that God is with it, as Amos promises to those who seek good. The list is not merely personal morality; it is congregational health.
At the same time, the church must remember that its witness is not built on its own purity. It is built on the gospel, which is good news for people who have broken every one of the seven commands. When the church gets this wrong, it can become a place of performance, where people hide their real struggles to avoid shame. When it gets it right, it becomes a place where sin can be confessed honestly, forgiveness can be received, and growth can happen. That is the community the gospel creates, and it is the community the world most needs to see.
Finally, this teaching gives the church hope for the future. The day is coming when the proud eyes, lying tongues, and scheming hearts will be no more. The promise of the gospel is not that God will lower his standards but that he will make a people who meet them. Until that day, we press on with honesty and grace, hating what God hates and loving what he loves. That is not a slogan; it is the shape of a faithful life, and it is worth pursuing with everything we have.
Biblical fidelity check
What Proverbs 6:16-19 actually establishes is that God is morally serious and that he names specific deeds as detestable. It also establishes that those deeds are responses of God's settled character to real moral evil, not arbitrary rules. What the passage does not establish is a license for any human being to claim God's authority in condemning another person, nor does it promise that those who quote these verses will be free of those sins. The passage describes God's judgment; it does not appoint us as judges. Read in isolation, the list can become a weapon; read with the rest of Scripture, it becomes a mirror and then a path to grace.
The most common misreading is to treat the passage as a list of sins that apply only to other people, especially outsiders. This is a serious error because it ignores both the Proverbs context, which is instruction for the covenant community, and the consistent biblical pattern that judgment begins with the household of God. The passage is addressed to those who are being taught wisdom, not to pagans. It is meant first to expose our own pride, lying, scheming, and stirring of conflict, and only then to guide us in helping others. When we apply it outward only, we turn a call to repentance into a form of self-righteousness, and we lose the very grace it is meant to lead us to.
Other passages that speak to Proverbs 6:16-19
The same concern for God's holiness runs through the whole Bible. What does Proverbs 3:5–6 mean? shows how trust in God shapes practical wisdom, which is the setting for this list. Natural revelation and what creation reveals about God: A Biblical Guide considers how creation itself bears witness to the God whose character stands behind these commands. What does Psalm 23 mean for Christians today? reminds us that the God who hates evil is also the shepherd who leads and protects his people. And What does Psalm 46:10 mean by be still? points to the God whose presence is our refuge even while he opposes evil in the world.
Frequently asked questions
Does God really hate things, or is this just a figure of speech?
The passage uses the strongest available language, calling these things an abomination to God, so this is more than poetic exaggeration. Scripture consistently presents God as morally opposed to evil, not indifferent to it. His hatred is not petty or spiteful like human hatred; it is the settled response of a holy God to what actually destroys what he has made. At the same time, the Bible also tells us that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and calls all people to repent. Both truths matter. The point is not to make God small and angry but to take evil seriously and to take his mercy seriously too.
Is it ever right for a Christian to hate people?
No. The hatred Scripture commands is aimed at works, not at persons. Revelation 2:6 commends a church for hating the works of the Nicolaitans, and the New Testament never tells believers to hate their enemies. Instead we are told to love them and pray for them. Christians can and should oppose false teaching, abuse, and injustice firmly. But opposition to what people do must never become contempt for who they are, because every person is made in God's image and called to repentance. Where faithful Christians differ is in how to express firm opposition in specific situations, and humility is appropriate there.
How do I begin to hate what God hates?
Begin with Scripture and prayer rather than with outrage. Read passages like Proverbs 6:16-19 slowly and ask God to apply them to your own heart first. Confess honestly when the list describes you, and ask for grace to change. Then let that same grace shape how you speak about the sins of others, aiming at their good rather than their shame. Growth in this area is gradual, and it comes from being with God more than from being against people. The goal is a heart that loves what he loves and grieves over what grieves him, for his glory and for the good of others.
