Better, There is a grievous correction, i. e., nothing less than death, to him that forsaketh the way.

Correction [is] grievous to him that (c) forsaketh the way: [and] he that hateth reproof shall die.
(c) He who swears from the word of God, cannot stand to be admonished.

Correction is grievous unto him that forsaketh the way,.... The right way, the way of God; the way of his commandments: the Vulgate Latin version is, "the way of life"; the same with the way of righteousness, which apostates, having known and walked in, turn aside from; see 2-Peter 2:15. And such deserve severe correction, the chastisement of a cruel one, correction in wrath and hot displeasure; which, when they have, is very disagreeable to them; they behave under it like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, and yet they are but dealt righteously with. Or the words may be rendered, "he has had bad discipline" or "instruction (z) that forsakes the way"; due care has not been taken of him; he has not been properly instructed, nor seasonably corrected; had he, he would not easily have departed from the way in which he should go; see Proverbs 22:6. The Targum is,
"the discipline of an evil man causes his way to err;''
or him to err from his way;
and he that hateth reproof shall die; that hates the reproof of parents, masters, and ministers of the word; as he may be said to do that neglects and rejects it, and does not act agreeably to it: and such a man, dying in impenitence and without faith in Christ, dies in his sins; and sometimes shamefully, or a shameful death, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions, or an untimely one; as well as dies the second death, an eternal one.
(z) "fuit illi mala disciplina, vel castigatio", Baynus.

He that hates reproof shall perish in his sins, since he would not be parted from them.

(Compare Proverbs 10:17).
the way--that in which God would have him to go (Proverbs 2:13; Psalm 119:1).

10 Sharp correction is for him who forsaketh the way;
Whoever hateth instruction shall die.
The way, thus absolute, is the God-pleasing right way (Proverbs 2:13), the forsaking of which is visited with the punishment of death, because it is that which leadeth unto life (Proverbs 10:17). And that which comes upon them who leave it is called מוּסר רע, castigatio dura, as much as to say that whoever does not welcome instruction, whoever rejects it, must at last receive it against his will in the form of peremptory punishment. The sharp correction (cf. Isaiah 28:28, Isaiah 28:19) is just the death under which he falls who accepts of no instruction (Proverbs 5:23), temporal death, but that as a token of wrath which it is not for the righteous (Proverbs 14:32).