Proverbs 14:32

14:18. Sin is the shame of sinners; but wisdom is the honour of the wise. 19. Even bad men acknowledge the excellency of God's people. 20. Friendship in the world is governed by self-interest. It is good to have God our Friend; he will not desert us. 21. To despise a man for his employment or appearance is a sin. 22. How wisely those consult their own interest, who not only do good, but devise it! 23. Labour of the head, or of the hand, will turn to some good account. But if men's religion runs all out in talk and noise, they will come to nothing. 24. The riches of men of wisdom and piety enlarge their usefulness. 25. An upright man will venture the displeasure of the greatest, to bring truth to light. 26,27. Those who fear the Lord so as to obey and serve him, have a strong ground of confidence, and will be preserved. Let us seek to this Fountain of life, that we may escape the snares of death. 28. Let all that wish well to the kingdom of Christ, do what they can, that many may be added to his church. 29. A mild, patient man is one that learns of Christ, who is Wisdom itself. Unbridled passion is folly made known. 30. An upright, contented, and benevolent mind, tends to health. 31. To oppress the poor is to reproach our Creator. 32. The wicked man has his soul forced from him; he dies in his sins, under the guilt and power of them. But godly men, though they have pain and some dread of death, have the blessed hope, which God, who cannot lie, has given them. 33.

Wisdom possesses the heart, and thus regulates the affections and tempers. 34. Piety and holiness always promote industry, sobriety, and honesty. 35. The great King who reigns over heaven and earth, will reward faithful servants who honour his gospel by the proper discharge of the duties of their stations: he despises not the services of the lowest.

Proverbs 14:32 . The wicked is driven away — From God’s favour and presence, and from the society of the righteous, and from all his hopes of happiness, both in this life and in the next; in his wickedness — Or, for his wickedness. The Hebrew, however, ברעת , is literally, in his evil; and may be understood of the evil of punishment: in the day of his trouble, when he shall flee to God for help, he shall be driven away from him. But the righteous hath hope in his death — In his greatest dangers and distresses; yea, even in death itself he hath hope of deliverance from, or of great and everlasting advantage by what he suffers.

(32) The wicked is driven away in his wickedness. —Or, is overthrown in his misfortune, i.e., when it comes upon him (comp. Psalm 34:21 ), for he has none to aid or comfort him. But the righteous hath hope in his death.—Comp. Job’s confidence (Job 13:15 and Psalm 23:4). The gravest troubles do not terrify him.

32 . his wickedness ] Lit. his evil ; which may mean either, with R.V. text, the evil which he does, his evil-doing , or, with R.V. marg., the evil which he suffers , his calamity . The latter meaning preserves best the parallelism: when calamity overtakes the wicked it crushes him utterly (comp. Psalm 36:12 ), but even in his last extremity of death the righteous hath hope. hope in his death ] which implies a belief in a future state. The same vivid contrast meets us in a more expanded form in Psalms 73. The “prosperity of the wicked,” in contrast to the hard lot of the righteous, had been the stumbling-block of the writer of the Psalm ( Psalm 73:1-16 ). It was by considering “the end” both of the one and of the other, that his faith was re-established. The wicked are thrust down in their calamity , “How are they become a desolation in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors” ( Proverbs 14:19 ): The righteous hath hope in his death , “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory” ( Proverbs 14:24 ). Comp. Psalm 49:14-15 . It is to be noticed that in both these Psalms ( Psalm 73:24 ; Psalm 49:15 ) the same word, take , or receive , is used to express the hope of the Psalmist, as that by which the translation of Enoch is described, God took him ( Genesis 5:24 ; Hebrews 11:5 ).

The LXX. read, “but he that trusteth in his own integrity is righteous,” ὁ δὲ πεποιθὼς τῇ ἑαυτοῦ ὁσιότητι δίκαιος ; on which Lange observes, “may not this divergent reading owe its origin to the endeavour to gain an antithesis as exact as possible to the ‘in his wickedness’ of the first clause?”

Driven away, to wit, in his death, as is gathered from the opposite clause; driven away from God’s favour and presence, and from the society of the just, and from all his hopes of happiness, both in this life and in the next. This expression notes that this is done suddenly, violently, and irresistibly, as the smoke or chaff are driven away by a strong wind. In his wickedness, or, for his wickedness, Heb. in his evil , which may be understood of the evil of punishment; in the day of his calamity, when he shall flee to God for help. Hath hope of deliverance from it, or of great and everlasting advantage by it. In his death; in his greatest dangers and distresses, yea, even in death itself, which therefore he can receive with comfort and confidence.

Verse 32. - The wicked is driven away in his wickedness. So the Greek and Latin Versions. In his very act of sin, flagrante delicto , the wicked is defeated, driven from hope and life; as the Revised Version renders, "The wicked is thrust down in his evil doing;" i.e. there is some element of weakness in an evil deed which occasions its discovery and punishment, sooner or later. Thus "murder will out," we say. But the contrast is better emphasized by taking ra in its other sense of "calamity," "misfortune," thus: "In his calamity the wicked is cast down" ( Proverbs 24:16 ). When misfortune comes upon him, he has no defence, no hope; he collapses utterly; all his friends forsake him; there is none to comfort or uphold him (comp. Matthew 7:26, 27 ). But the righteous hath hope in his death (comp. Ecclus. 1:13). Primarily, the clause means that even in the greatest danger the good man loses not his trust in God. It is like Job's word (if our reading is correct, Job 13:15 ), "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;" and the psalmist, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" ( Psalm 23:4 ). Thus the Christian martyrs went joyfully to the stake, and gentle women and little children smiled on the sword which sent them home.

It is natural to see in this clause a belief in a future life, and a state of rewards and punishments; and some commentators, holding that this doctrine was net known in pre-exilian days, have taken occasion from its plain enunciation in this paragraph to affix a very late date to our book. There are two answers to be made to this assertion. First, it is capable of proof that the belief in the immortality of the soul, with its consequences in another state, was held, however vaguely, by the Jews long before Solomon's time (see note, Proverbs 12:28 ); secondly, the present passage is by some read differently, whence is obtained another rendering, which removes from it all trace of the doctrine in question. Thus Ewald and others would read the clause in this way: "The righteous hath hope, or taketh refuge, from his own deeds." There can be no reasonable doubt that the usual reading and translation are correct; but the above considerations show that no argument as to the date of the Proverbs can be safely founded on this verse. The LXX. has a different reading for במותו , "in his death," and translates, "But he who trusteth in his own holiness is just" - which looks like a travesty of Scripture, but probably refers to the consciousness of having a heart right with God and obedient to the requirements of the Divine Law. Proverbs 14:32