“Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and depart from evil” (v. 7). Pride is the oldest heresy—the quiet conviction that one’s own judgement is sufficient, even superior. To be “wise in your own eyes” isn’t confidence but self-deception, a posture that mistakes familiarity with insight and opinion for authority. Such “wisdom” builds its house on sand and calls it bedrock, blessing what God condemns and condemning what God blesses (cf. Isaiah 5:20). The fear of the Lord interrupts such delusion. It reorients the soul away from the fallacy of self-sufficiency and toward holiness. This fear isn’t panic or servility, but reverent awe—a clarity that unmasks sin, exposes our limits, and loosens our grip on evil because we’ve come to know the Righteous One.
God’s Wisdom doesn’t hover in abstraction. It descends into the concrete realities of embodied life. “It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones” (v. 8). The word translated “health” here is riphuth (רִפְאוּת), which carries the sense of healing and restoration—something mended and made whole again. To live in the fear of the Lord—to walk in repentance and trust in His Word—addresses more than the intellect; it steadies the body and calms the conscience. Sin corrodes from within. Guilt gnaws at the bones (Psalm 6:2). But life ordered by God’s wisdom brings a deep, quiet strength—not always relief from pain, but the peace of a conscience unburdened and reconciled to God (cf. 1 Peter 3:21).
There is, then, a real connection between obedience and well-being, not as a contract to be enforced, but as a gracious design woven into creation. When we fear the Lord and thus turn from evil, we step into the grain of the world as God made it—a small taste of Eden. The Commandments aren’t restraints imposed to diminish us; they’re bearings that orient us toward life. To walk in them by faith generally leads to a life marked by stability and wholeness because it draws us nearer to the One in whom all healing resides. Christ is the Great Physician not only of diseased bodies, but also of broken hearts and crushed spirits (Psalm 51:17).
Therefore, resist the temptation to enthrone your own judgements. That vantage point is too myopic to sustain you. Lift your eyes instead to the cross, where God’s Wisdom appears foolish to the world yet reveals the power of salvation to all who believe (1 Corinthians 1:18, 21). Let His wounds become your healing (Isaiah 53:5), His Word your orientation, and His mercy the foundation of your reverence. In this fear, you will find health, which doesn’t mean the absence of struggle but the presence of grace. Your weary bones will be strengthened by the hand of the One who formed them and calls you His own.
The Lutheran Column 