Motives are the intended comprehensive self-investigation that leads to life-saving repentance is the intent of this proverb as it was in related proverbs 14:12, 16:2, and 24:12. Is it possible to self-examine the self-deceived heart? Not without God’s intervention. Without God revealing the true intent of my actions I would never know the weight of my heart.
Job humbly prayed, “For what is man’s lot from God above, his heritage from the Almighty on high? Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong? Does he not see my ways and count my every step? If I have walked in falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit– let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless– if my steps have turned from the path, if my heart has been led by my eyes, or if my hands have been defiled, then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted. If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s door, then may my wife grind another man’s grain, and may other men sleep with her. For that would have been shameful, a sin to be judged. It is a fire that burns to Destruction; it would have uprooted my harvest. If I have denied justice to my menservants and maidservants when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me? What will I answer when called to account? Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?” (Job 31:2-15)
Job asks the Lord to examine and reveal to him his heart’s motive. He asks God to reveal other sinful motives and ways. Why does he want the Lord God to weigh his heart? Job says, “For I dreaded destruction from God, and for fear of his splendor I could not do such things.” (Job 31:23) He knows that he may have fooled himself that he was not sinning when in fact he was. He considers that perhaps the calamities that befell him are the result of sin, but he believes he has not sinned and wants God to reveal to him if he has deceived himself. Am I the same?
