"There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him"
Solomon condenses that which disgusts the Lord into an easy-to-remember list. It all has to do with your putting yourself above or before others.
It is interesting to let the power of this verse speak to us in a modern culture that has been force-fed a theology that God is only love and kindness. He also hates certain things which destroy the order that He created. He hates that which promotes the self above others or at the expense of others.
hates
This is the Hebrew word sane which means to be hated or to be full of hate. Hatred is intense hostility towards someone.
Think this through: God actually has intense hostility toward certain actions. This is the Supreme Being who dwells outside of our space time universe in a dimensionality that is called eternity, whose properties we do not completely understand. This Supreme Being is multi-personal, all-powerful, infinite in wisdom and knowledge. He used His infinite wisdom, knowledge, and power to create the world. This Almighty Being declares, through His chosen mouthpiece, that He has intense hostility to certain actions that we can take. Imagine that one day you will be evaluated by this Supreme Being for everything you ever said, did, or thought. You do not want to have done the things that He feels intense hostility toward.
Look at the list: Pride, Lying, Murder, Coveting, Quickness to evil, Lying, Strife. Don't do these things. What is interesting is that this would not have been the list that we would have thought God should hate – from our perspective. We would have gotten murder, but we would have suggested that physical harm to another is what causes God to be nauseated. Each of these things directly affects relationships between people. When a relationship is killed, it is not how God wired the world to work.
abomination
This is the Hebrew word toeba which means abominable or deeply loathed, repugnant. There are some things that should not be done. They destroy the fabric of life. Notice that God finds abominable that which destroys the way that the world was supposed to work. When a person commits an action that destroys the way God designed the universe to operate, then it is abominable. It is interesting that God gave us the ability to do things that He found abominable, but He did. We have been given the ability to do things that totally gum up the works that God set up. Do not use your power to choose for things that God finds repugnant.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz