Laziness is a plague in our world. Does it afflict you? Either way, here’s a great run-down of the character know as “the sluggard” in the book of Proverbs. Look up each of the verses for a full study of how God’s wisdom views laziness.
The sluggard in Proverbs is a figure of tragi-comedy, with his sheer animal laziness (he is more than anchored to his bed; he is hinged to it, 26:14), his preposterous excuses (‘there is a lion outside!’ 26:13; 22:13) and his final helplessness.
- He will not begin things. When we ask him (6:9, 10) ‘How long…?’ ‘When…?’, we are being too definite for him. He doesn’t know. All he knows is his delicious drowsiness; all he asks is a little respite: ‘a little…a little…a little…’. He does not commit himself to a refusal, but deceives himself by the smallness of his surrenders. So, by inches and minutes, his opportunity slips away.
- He will not finish things. The rare effort of beginning has been too much; the impulse dies. SO his quarry goes bad on him (12:27) and his meal goes cold on him (19:24; 26:15).
- He will not face things. He comes to believe his own excuses (perhaps there is a lion out there, 22:13), and to rationalize his laziness; for he is ‘wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason’ (26:16). Because he makes a habit of the soft choice (he ‘will not plow by reason of the cold’ , 20:4) his character suffers as much as his business, so that he is implied in 15:19 to be fundamentally dishonest. (A suggestion of the way he would describe himself is made in the commentary on 26:13-16.)
- Consequently he is restless (13:4; 21:25, 26) with unsatisfied desire; helpless in face of the tangle of his affairs, which are like a ‘hedge of thorns’ (15:19); and useless – expensively (18:9) and exasperatingly (10:26) – to any who must employ him.
The wise man will learn while there is time. He knows that the sluggard is no freak, but, as often as not, an ordinary man who has made too many excuses, too many refusals and too many postponements. It has all been as imperceptible, and as pleasant, as falling asleep.
–From Proverbs, An Introduction and Commentary by Derek Kidner