Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Should we fear God?The Torah, prophets, and Wisdom literature relentlessly command fear of YHWH — Deuteronomy 6:13, Ecclesiastes 12:13, Proverbs 9:10, Matthew 10:28, and Hebrews…
Do the wicked live long?Job 21:7 stares straight at the problem of evil and admits that the wicked do, in fact, live long and grow mighty.
Has there ever been a righteous person?Job 15:14, Isaiah 64:6, and Romans 3:10 deny anyone is righteous — all our righteousness is as filthy rags, there is none righteous, no, not one.
Proverbs 9:11(v27)For by me your days will be multiplied. The years of your life will be increased.
Psalms 37:22(v30)For such as are blessed by him shall inherit the land. Those who are cursed by him shall be cut off.
Proverbs 21:15(v29)It is joy to the righteous to do justice; but it is a destruction to the workers of iniquity.
Psalms 125:1(v30)Those who trust in Yahweh are as Mount Zion, which can’t be moved, but remains forever.
Proverbs 3:2(v27)for they will add to you length of days, years of life, and peace.
Show all 58 cross-references
Psalms 37:9-10(v30)For evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for Yahweh shall inherit the land. For yet a little while, and the wicked will be no…
Psalms 37:28-29(v30)For Yahweh loves justice, and doesn’t forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. The…
Psalms 37:30(v31)The mouth of the righteous talks of wisdom. His tongue speaks justice.
Psalms 91:16(v27)I will satisfy him with long life, and show him my salvation.”
Proverbs 2:21-22(v30)For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it. But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will…
Job 15:32-33(v27)It will be accomplished before his time. His branch will not be green. He will shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and will cast off…
Proverbs 10:25(v30)When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more; but the righteous stand firm forever.
Romans 2:8-9(v29)but to those who are self-seeking, and don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath, indignation, oppression, and anguish…
Job 8:13(v28)So are the paths of all who forget God. The hope of the godless man will perish,
Job 22:15-16(v27)Will you keep the old way, which wicked men have trodden, who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a…
Psalms 16:8(v30)I have set Yahweh always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Psalms 21:4(v27)He asked life of you and you gave it to him, even length of days forever and ever.
Psalms 34:11-13(v27)Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of Yahweh. Who is someone who desires life, and loves many days, that he may…
Psalms 73:24-26(v28)You will guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom do I have in heaven? There is no one on earth whom I desire…
Proverbs 10:13(v31)Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has discernment, but a rod is for the back of him who is void of understanding.
Romans 15:13(v28)Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Philippians 4:13(v29)I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
Psalms 36:12(v29)There the workers of iniquity are fallen. They are thrust down, and shall not be able to rise.
Psalms 37:20(v29)But the wicked shall perish. The enemies of Yahweh shall be like the beauty of the fields. They will vanish— vanish like smoke.
Psalms 55:23(v27)But you, God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, but I…
Psalms 84:7(v29)They go from strength to strength. Every one of them appears before God in Zion.
Psalms 92:7(v29)though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.
Psalms 112:6(v30)For he will never be shaken. The righteous will be remembered forever.
Proverbs 3:16(v27)Length of days is in her right hand. In her left hand are riches and honor.
Proverbs 10:20-21(v31)The tongue of the righteous is like choice silver. The heart of the wicked is of little worth. The lips of the righteous feed many, but the…
Proverbs 11:7(v28)When a wicked man dies, hope perishes, and expectation of power comes to nothing.
Ecclesiastes 7:17(v27)Don’t be too wicked, neither be foolish. Why should you die before your time?
Isaiah 40:31(v29)but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They…
Zechariah 10:12(v29)I will strengthen them in Yahweh; and they will walk up and down in his name,” says Yahweh.
Matthew 21:41(v30)They told him, “He will miserably destroy those miserable men, and will lease out the vineyard to other farmers, who will give him the…
Luke 12:20(v27)“But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’
Romans 8:35-39(v30)Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…
2 Peter 1:10-11(v30)Therefore, brothers, be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble. For thus…
Job 11:20(v28)But the eyes of the wicked will fail. They will have no way to flee. Their hope will be the giving up of the spirit.”
Job 31:3(v29)Is it not calamity to the unrighteous, and disaster to the workers of iniquity?
Psalms 1:6(v29)For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.
Psalms 31:18(v31)Let the lying lips be mute, which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt.
Psalms 52:5(v30)God will likewise destroy you forever. He will take you up, and pluck you out of your tent, and root you out of the land of the living.
Psalms 63:11(v31)But the king shall rejoice in God. Everyone who swears by him will praise him, for the mouth of those who speak lies shall be silenced.
Psalms 112:10(v28)The wicked will see it, and be grieved. He shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away. The desire of the wicked will perish.
Psalms 120:3-4(v31)What will be given to you, and what will be done more to you, you deceitful tongue? Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.
Proverbs 10:11(v31)The mouth of the righteous is a spring of life, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
Proverbs 14:32(v28)The wicked is brought down in his calamity, but in death, the righteous has a refuge.
Jeremiah 17:11(v27)As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right. In the middle of his days, they will…
Ezekiel 33:24-26(v30)“Son of man, those who inhabit the waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, ‘Abraham was one, and he inherited the land; but we…
Micah 2:9-10(v30)You drive the women of my people out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away my blessing forever. Arise, and…
Matthew 7:22-23(v29)Many will tell me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty…
Luke 13:26-27(v29)Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ He will say, ‘I tell you, I don’t know…
Romans 5:2(v28)through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Romans 12:12(v28)rejoicing in hope; enduring in troubles; continuing steadfastly in prayer;
2 Thessalonians 2:16(v28)Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,
Psalms 16:9(v28)Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices. My body shall also dwell in safety.
Luke 16:23-26(v28)In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom. He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham,…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (23 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv27, 30The time of their prosperity shall be short because…
The time of their prosperity shall be short because of their great fall, though they seem to live long.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv27–31Pro 10:27 The fear of the LORD prolongeth days:…
Pro 10:27 The fear of the LORD prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.
Ver. 27. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.] Heb., Addeth days, viz., beyond expectation or likelihood in a course of nature. "The days of mourning for my father are at hand," said bloody Esau, "and then will I slay my brother Jacob." {Gen 27:41} But threatened men, if they fear God especially, {Ecc 8:12-13} live long. For even Isaac who died soonest, lived above fifty years beyond this. {See Trapp on "Exo 20:12"}
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But the years of the wicked shall be shortened.] "Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldst thou die before thy time?" {Ecc 7:17} Sin brings death, and the worst of deaths, an unseasonable death, when it were better for a man to do anything than to die; for to such, death is a trap door to hell: and as their friends are scrambling for their goods, the worms for their bodies, so are the devils for their souls.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv27–31Prolongeth days; partly because it gives them a title…
Prolongeth days; partly because it gives them a title to the promise of long life, as well as to other promises; partly because it gladdeth the heart, which doth good like a medicine, Pro 17:22, and preserves a man from those wicked practices which tend to the shortening of the days.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn vv27, 29, 31Observe, 1. Religion lengthens men's lives and crowns their…
Observe, 1. Religion lengthens men's lives and crowns their hopes. What man is he that loves life? Let him fear God, and that will secure him from many things that would prejudice his life, and secure to him life enough in this world and eternal life in the other; the fear of the Lord will add days more than was expected, will add them endlessly, will prolong them to the days of eternity. What man is he that would see good days? Let him be religious, and then his days shall not only be many, but happy, very happy as well as very many, for the hope of the righteous shall be gladness; they shall have what they hope for, to their unspeakable satisfaction. It is something future and unseen that they place their happiness in (Rom 8:24, Rom 8:25), not what they have in hand, but what they have in hope, and their hope will shortly be swallowed up in fruition, and it will be their everlasting gladness. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. 2. Wickedness shortens men's lives, and frustrates their hopes: The years of the wicked, that are spent in the pleasures of sin and the drudgery of the world, shall be shortened. Cut down the trees that cumber the ground. And whatever comfort or happiness a wicked man promises himself, in this world or the other, he will be frustrated; for the expectation of the wicked shall perish; his hope shall be turned into endless despair.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv27–31The fear of the Lord prolongeth days,.... Not beyond…
The fear of the Lord prolongeth days,.... Not beyond the time fixed in the unalterable purposes and decrees of God, Job 14:5; but longer than some others, or than those that fear the Lord expect to live; or longer than, according to the course of nature, and the weakness of their constitutions, it could be thought they should live. Long life is promised to them that fear the Lord; godliness has the promise of this life and of that to come; the fear of the Lord is the means of preserving persons from those things which are pernicious to the health of men, and so of prolonging their days; as well as it has length of days, for ever and ever, even eternal life, annexed to it; see Psa 34:11;
but the years of the wicked shall be shortened; through diseases, which their sins bring upon them, which cut them off before they have lived out half their days; or by means of which, their sins, they come into the hand of the civil magistrate, and die before their time; or are taken off in their full strength by the immediate judgment of God, as were Ananias and Sapphira; and so they die in the midst of their days; and before the time, which, according to the course of nature, and the common period of life, in all human probability they might have arrived unto, Psa 55:23.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv28–30Gladness - Shall be accomplished, and turned into enjoyment.
Gladness - Shall be accomplished, and turned into enjoyment.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv28–31Verse 28. The expectation of the wicked shall perish.]…
Verse 28. The expectation of the wicked shall perish.] A wicked man is always imposing on himself by the hope of God's mercy and final happiness; and he continues hoping, till he dies without receiving that mercy which alone would entitle him to that glory.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv27, 29, 31Pro 10:27-28. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days…
Pro 10:27-28. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days — For it gives those who are influenced by it a title to the promise of long life, as well as to other promises; it gladdens their hearts, which does good like a medicine, Pro 17:22; and it preserves them from those wicked practices which tend to the shortening of a man’s days. The hope of the righteous shall be gladness — Though at present it be mixed with doubts, and fears, and disappointments, yet at last it shall be accomplished and turned into enjoyment; but the expectation of the wicked, &c. — Shall be utterly frustrated, and so shall end in sorrow.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv28–31Transpose “hope” and “expectation.” The expectant waiting of the…
Transpose “hope” and “expectation.” The expectant waiting of the righteous is joyful at the time, and ends in joy: the eager hope of the wicked comes to nought.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges1846 · Public DomainOn vv27–31The fear of the LORD is not a single…
The fear of the LORD is not a single grace. It includes the substance of all godly tempers. For all are radically one principle, from one source. It essentially differs from the fear of the wicked. They fear those whom they hate. The child of God — whom he loves. Whether his temporal life be shortened or prolonged, he lives long in a little time. He is an infinite gainer by the contraction of life; when his days are prolonged and swallowed up in the one unclouded day, of which "the sun shall no more go down." (Pro 9:11 . Psa 91:16 . Isa 60:19 .) Justly is the fear of the LORD contrasted with the wicked; because the absence of this grace is their distinguishing mark (Psa 36:1 ), the principle of all their ungodliness. (Rom 3:10-18 .) And often do we see the letter of this curse realized in the shortening of their years. Excessive worldliness wears out the spring of life (Ecc 5:10-12 ), and often brings it to an untimely end.†1 Sometimes the God of vengeance breaks out, and "takes away" the darling offender "with his stroke." (Job 36:18 . 1Sa 2:32 ; 1Sa 4:11 . Act 5:1-10 .) Yet, if he be "visited after the visitation of all men," awful indeed is the course of a long life wasted in folly and sin; living little in a long time — "The sinner, being an hundred years old, shall be accursed." (Isa 65:20 .)
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv29–30Evil. conscience upbraids them, and punishment is before their…
Evil. conscience upbraids them, and punishment is before their eyes. (Haydock) Magna vis est conscientiæ. (Cicero, pro Mil.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv27–31(Compare Pro 9:11; Psa 55:23).
(Compare Pro 9:11; Psa 55:23).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv27–3127. Prolongeth — Literally, addeth.
27. Prolongeth — Literally, addeth.
Shortened — Cut off short, curtailed, because they feared not Jehovah. Compare Pro_3:2; Pro_9:11; Pro_14:27; Psa_55:23; Ecc_7:17; Ecc_8:12-13.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv27, 29, 30, 3127. Comp. Pro_3:2.
27. Comp. Pro_3:2.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv27, 29, 30, 31(27) The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.—The special…
(27) The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.—The special Old Testament blessing for obedience (comp. Pro_9:11), often fulfilled now, too, in the case of those who live on to old age, in the quiet fulfilment of duty; while others are shortening their lives by excessive anxieties, or the pursuit of pleasure.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv27–31The fear of the Lord prolongeth days. The premise…
The fear of the Lord prolongeth days. The premise of long life as the reward of a religious conversation is often found in our book, where temporal retribution is set forth. (see Pro_3:2 Pro_9:11 Pro_14:27) Shall be shortened, as Psa_55:23 Ecc_7:17.
Vers. 27-32. Impression by tautology.
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These verses contain mostly iterations of maxims already delivered. (on ver. 27, see on Pro_3:2 Pro_9:11; on ver. 28, see on ver. 24; Pro_11:7) That religion is a protector to the man of good conscience, while overthrow awaits the ungodly, again brings out an often expressed thought with emphasis. (ver. 30; see on ver. 25; Pro_3:21) Vers, 31, 32 again contrast the speech of the good and the wicked; the former like a sappy and fruitful tree, the latter destined to oblivion; the former appealing to the sense of beauty and grace, the latter shocking by its deformity.
I THERE IS A SAMENESS IN GOD. He does not and cannot change. He is invariable substance, unalterable will and law.
II THERE IS A SAMENESS IN NATURE. The heavens above us, with all their worlds, the great mountains and features of the landscape, the daily sights of sunrise and evening, form and colour. Abraham and Solomon looked upon essentially the same world with ourselves.
III THERE IS A SAMENESS IN HUMAN NATURE its passions, strength, and weakness. The same types of character appear and reappear in every age in relatively new forms. And it is proverbial that history repeats itself.
IV THE ESSENTIAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO GOD MUST BE THE SAME IN EVERY AGE. Hence the teacher"s deliverances must constantly recur to the same great points.
V THAT WHICH VARIES IS THE TRIVIAL OR TRANSIENT ELEMENT; THAT WHICH DOES NOT VARY IS THE SUBLIME AND THE ETERNAL.
VI EVERY TRUE TEACHER MAY THUS VARY THE FORM OF HIS INSTRUCTION AS MUCH AS HE WILL. Let him see to it that he works in unison with God and nature, experience, the conscience, and leaves a few great impressions firmly fixed in the mind. "Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. J.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv27, 28, 29, 31The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.
Pro_10:27
The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.
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Long life a promised blessing
We may wish for one another long life. Every one wishes it for himself. It is a mistake to regard this wish as an infirmity. Strong love of life is not necessarily sinful.
1. Long life is distinctly promised in Scripture as a blessing to Gods people, both in the Old and New Testaments.
2. See why long life is a blessing. Because God rewards the good works of His people. He enables them to do good works, and rewards their work. The reward is not salvation but glory. Life, like health, intellect, influence, is a talent, lent to us for our Masters service and our own profit; the greater the loan the larger the profit; the longer it is in trust, the fuller the results. There are difficulties in the way of accepting this truth. One is the seemingly contradictory language of Scripture on the subject. Some passages speak of early departure as a blessing. This is true only in special cases. And we must distinguish between things good and desirable in themselves, and things which become so by Gods appointment. Another objection is this--Admitting that long life is a blessing, and a promised blessing, still we do not see the fulfilment of the promise. We see young saints departing, and old sinners remaining. In reply it may be urged that, if we could take the average of life, we should find it to be in favour of godly men. And the exceptions to the rule are more apparent than real. In many cases we see only the pious death, we are not acquainted with the whole previous life. It may be that the good man, whose early death so distresses and perplexes us, has, in early life, deserved that his days should have been thus shortened. And the cases of early death are simply exceptions to a generally working law.
3. What practical bearing shall this truth have upon our lives? We have rescued this text from the strained interpretation of those who do not look on long life as in itself a blessing. We have learned the true meaning and use of this longing after life which all men feel. It is no small gain to our peace of mind, when we can see that this love of life is not always an infirmity or a sin, but that the Christian may lawfully desire long life, as a longer time of working and suffering for Christ. And such a lawful desire for long life gives the strongest motive for rightly using life as it passes.
4. The tendency of vice is to shorten mens days. The text implies that, as life is a talent given to be rightly used, so, if abused, it is taken away from the possessor. We desire a longer life for the ungodly and careless, because we know that life is an opportunity for salvation; we would give the wicked further chance of repentance. (Abp. W. C. Magee.)
The fear of the Lord prolongeth days
There is no doubt about it. The fear of the Lord leads to virtuous habits, and these prevent that waste of life which comes of sin and vice. The holy rest which springs out of faith in the Lord Jesus also greatly helps a man when he is ill. Every physician rejoices to have a patient whose mind is fully at ease. Worry kills, but confidence in God is like healing medicine. We have therefore all the arrangements for long life, and if it be really for our good, we shall see a good old age, and come to our graves as shocks of corn in their season. Let us not be overcome with sudden expectation of death the moment we have a finger-ache, but let us rather expect that we may have to work on through a considerable length of days. And what if we should soon be called to the higher sphere? Certainly there would be nothing to deplore in such a summons, but everything to rejoice in. Living or dying we are the Lords. If we live, Jesus will be with us; if we die, we shall be with Jesus. The truest lengthening of life is to live while we live, wasting no time, but using every hour for the highest ends. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn vv27–30MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_10:27
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_10:27
LONG LIFE
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This verse must be looked at—
I. Generally. The fear of the Lord prolongs life because, other things being equal, godliness tends to bodily health. A good man governs his life by some kind of law, his passions and inclinations do not play the lord over his conscience and will. This has a beneficial influence upon his bodily health. He has contentment with his present lot, trust in his God amid all the anxieties of life, and hope for the future. Such a state of mind tends to soundness of bodily health, whereas the manner of life of a godless man is opposed to health and consequently to long life. If a complicated machine is permitted to work with some of its parts improperly adjusted and fretting against each other at every turn of the wheel, the friction will soon wear away the parts, and ere long they will cease to act. A soul without godliness is a complicated mechanism which has never been rightly adjusted. There is no ruling principle, no guiding hand, one passion wars against another, the man bears the burden of life alone, he is at times a prey to the fears spoken of in Pro_10:24, and the rule of all these devils in the soul has a tendency to wear out the body before its time. This is a truth universally admitted. But the words must also be regarded—
II. Relatively. That is, with a due regard to other circumstances. The length of a good man’s life does not always depend upon himself, but upon the age in which he lives—upon the people by whom he is surrounded. The godliness of Abel shortened his life very materially. If his works had not been righteous, his brother would not have murdered him. The first Christian martyr met with an early and a violent death because he was a “man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost” (Act_6:5); and the fear of the Lord has shortened the days of millions since then. The ranks of the “noble army of martyrs” have been filled up by volunteers of every age and many nations since Stephen fell asleep, testifying to the fact that, so far as life in this world is concerned, other things must be taken into consideration.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
There is no such wholesome air—there is no such kindly physic—there is no such sovereign cordial—as the fear of the Lord. That makes the days of the godly as long as the years of the wicked.—Jermin.
The righteous’ days are great and noble, and the wicked’s days are mean and small. And this is the meaning of the Proverb, “Made little,” literally, “shortened” (E.V.). We thought at first that this was decisive against our sense, and against our rendering of all the verses expounded in chap. 3. (Pro_10:2-16). Our thought of this was increased by Job_14:1, and by all the expositions. But when we turned to Psa_102:23, our own sense was wonderfully confirmed. That verse reads, “He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days:” where “shortened” must have a sense coincident with continued living. And what that sense is, such passages as these: “Is my hand shortened?” (Isa_50:2), “The soul of the people was (lit.) shortened,” “The days of his youth hast Thou shortened” (Num_21:4; Psa_89:45), and nearly all the other instances strikingly confirm. The meaning is, Wisdom makes our days grander and grander, and Impenitence makes them weaker, and always of less account.—Miller.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn v29
Proverbs
THE TWO-FOLD ASPECT OF THE DIVINE WORKING
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Pro 10:29.
You observe that the words ‘shall be,’ in the last clause, are a supplement. They are quite unnecessary, and in fact they rather hinder the sense. They destroy the completeness of the antithesis between the two halves of the verse. If you leave them out, and suppose that the ‘way of the Lord’ is what is spoken of in both clauses, you get a far deeper and fuller meaning. ‘The way of the Lord is strength to the upright; but destruction to the workers of iniquity.’ It is the same way which is strength to one man and ruin to another, and the moral nature of the man determines which it shall be to him. That is a penetrating word, which goes deep down. The unknown thinkers, to whose keen insight into the facts of human life we are indebted for this Book of Proverbs, had pondered for many an hour over the perplexed and complicated fates of men, and they crystallised their reflections at last in this thought. They have in it struck upon a principle which explains a great many things, and teaches us a great many solemn lessons. Let us try to get a hold of what is meant, and then to look at some applications and illustrations of the principle.
I. First, then, let me just try to put clearly the meaning and bearing of these words. ‘The way of the Lord’ means, sometimes in the Old Testament and sometimes in the New, religion, considered as the way in which God desires a man to walk. So we read in the New Testament of ‘the way’ as the designation of the profession and practice of Christianity; and ‘the way of the Lord’ is often used in the Psalms for the path which He traces for man by His sovereign will.
But that, of course, is not the meaning here. Here it means, not the road in which God prescribes that we should walk, but that road in which He Himself walks; or, in other words, the sum of the divine action, the solemn footsteps of God through creation, providence, and history. ‘His goings forth are from everlasting.’ ‘His way is in the sea.’ ‘His way is in the sanctuary.’ Modern language has a whole set of phrases which mean the same thing as the Jew meant by ‘the way of the Lord,’ only that God is left out. They talk about the ‘current of events,’ ‘the general tendency of things,’ ‘the laws of human affairs,’ and so on. I, for my part, prefer the old-fashioned ‘Hebraism.’ To many modern thinkers the whole drift and tendency of human affairs affords no sign of a person directing these. They hear the clashing and grinding of opposing forces, the thunder as of falling avalanches, and the moaning as of a homeless wind, but they hear the sounds of no footfalls echoing down the ages. This ancient teacher had keener ears. Well for us if we share his faith, and see in all the else distracting mysteries of life and history, ‘the way of the Lord!’
But not only does the expression point to the operation of a personal divine Will in human affairs, but it conceives of that operation as one, a uniform and consistent whole. However complicated, and sometimes apparently contradictory, the individual events were, there was a unity in them, and they all converged on one result. The writer does not speak of ‘ways,’ but of ‘the way,’ as a grand unity. It is all one continuous, connected, consistent mode of operation from beginning to end.
The author of this proverb believed something more about the way of the Lord. He believed that although it is higher than our way, still, a man can know something about it; and that whatever may be enigmatical, and sometimes almost heart-breaking, in it, one thing is sure-that as we have been taught of late years in another dialect, it ‘makes for righteousness.’ ‘Clouds and darkness are round about Him,’ but the Old Testament writers never falter in the conviction, which was the soul of all their heroism and the life blood of their religion, that in the hearts of the clouds and darkness, ‘Justice and judgment are the foundations of His throne.’ The way of the Lord, says this old thinker, is hard to understand, very complicated, full of all manner of perplexities and difficulties, and yet on the whole the clear drift and tendency of the whole thing is discernible, and it is this: it is all on the side of good. Everything that is good, and everything that does good, is an ally of God’ s, and may be sure of the divine favour and of the divine blessing resting upon it.
And just because that is so clear, the other side is as true; the same way, the same set of facts, the same continuous stream of tendency, which is all with and for every form of good, is all against every form of evil. Or, as one of the Psalmists puts the same idea, ‘The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil.’ The same eye that beams in lambent love on ‘the righteous’ burns terribly to the evil doer. ‘The face of the Lord’ means the side of the divine nature which is turned to us, and is manifested by His self-revealing activity, so that the expression comes near in meaning to ‘the way of the Lord,’ and the thought in both cases is the same, that by the eternal law of His being, God’s actions must all be for the good and against the evil.
They do not change, but a man’s character determines which aspect of them he sees and has to experience. God’s way has a bright side and a dark. You may take which you like. You can lay hold of the thing by whichever handle you choose. On the one side it is convex, on the other concave. You can approach it from either side, as you please. ‘The way of the Lord’ must touch your ‘way.’ Your cannot alter that necessity. Your path must either run parallel in the same direction with His, and then all His power will be an impulse to bear you onward; or it must run in the opposite direction, and then all His power will be for your ruin, and the collision with it will crush you as a ship is crushed like an egg-shell, when it strikes an iceberg. You can choose which of these shall befall you.
And there is a still more striking beauty about the saying, if we give the full literal meaning to the word ‘strength.’ It is used by our translators, I suppose, in a somewhat archaic and peculiar signification, namely, that of a stronghold. At all events the Hebrew means a fortress, a place where men may live safe and secure; and if we take that meaning, the passage gains greatly in force and beauty. This ‘way of the Lord’ is like a castle for the shelter of the shelterless good man, and behind those strong bulwarks he dwells impregnable and safe. Just as a fortress is a security to the garrison, and a frowning menace to the besiegers or enemies, so the ‘name of the Lord is a strong tower,’ and the ‘way of the Lord’ is a fortress. If you choose to take shelter within it, its massive walls are your security and your joy. If you do not, they frown down grimly upon you, a menace and a terror. How differently, eight hundred years ago, Normans and Saxons looked at the square towers that were built all over England to bridle the inhabitants! To the one they were the sign of the security of their dominion; to the other they were the sign of their slavery and submission. Torture and prison-houses they might become; frowning portents they necessarily were. ‘The way of the Lord’ is a castle fortress to the man that does good, and to the man that does evil it is a threatening prison, which may become a hell of torture. It is ‘ruin to the workers of iniquity.’ I pray you, settle for yourself which of these it is to be to you.
II. And now let me say a word or two by way of application, or illustration, of these principles that are here.
First, let me remind you how the order of the universe is such that righteousness is life and sin is death. This universe and the fortunes of men are complicated and strange. It is hard to trace any laws, except purely physical ones, at work. Still, on the whole, things do work so that goodness is blessedness, and badness is ruin. That is, of course, not always true in regard of outward things, but even about them it is more often and obviously true than we sometimes recognise. Hence all nations have their proverbs, embodying the generalised experience of centuries, and asserting that, on the whole, ‘honesty is the best policy,’ and that it is always a blunder to do wrong. What modern phraseology calls ‘laws of nature,’ the Bible calls ‘the way of the Lord’; and the manner in which these help a man who conforms to them, and hurt or kill him if he does not, is an illustration on a lower level of the principle of our text. This tremendous congeries of powers in the midst of which we live does not care whether we go with it or against it, only if we do the one we shall prosper, and if we do the other we shall very likely be made an end of. Try to stop a train, and it will run over you and murder you; get into it, and it will carry you smoothly along. Our lives are surrounded with powers, which will carry our messages and be our slaves if we know how to command nature by obeying it, or will impassively strike us dead if we do not.
Again, in our physical life, as a rule, virtue makes strength, sin brings punishment. ‘Riotous living’ makes diseased bodies. Sins in the flesh are avenged in the flesh, and there is no need for a miracle to bring it about that he who sows to the flesh shall ‘of the flesh reap corruption.’ God entrusts the punishment of the breach of the laws of temperance and morality in the body to the ‘natural’ operation of such breach. The inevitable connection between sins against the body and disease in the body, is an instance of the way of the Lord-the same set of principles and facts-being strength to one man and destruction to another. Hundreds of young men in Manchester-some of whom are listening to me now, no doubt-are killing themselves, or at least are ruining their health, by flying in the face of the plain laws of purity and self-control. They think that they must ‘have their fling,’ and ‘obey their instincts,’ and so on. Well, if they must, then another ‘must’ will insist upon coming into play-and they must reap as they have sown, and drink as they have brewed, and the grim saying of this book about profligate young men will be fulfilled in many of them. ‘His bones are full of the iniquity of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the grave.’ Be not deceived, God is not mocked, and His way avenges bodily transgressions by bodily sufferings.
And then, in higher regions, on the whole, goodness makes blessedness, and evil brings ruin. All the powers of God’s universe, and all the tenderness of God’s heart are on the side of the man that does right. The stars in their courses fight against the man that fights against Him; and on the other side, in yielding thyself to the will of God and following the dictates of His commandments, ‘Thou shalt make a league with the beasts of the field, and the stones of the field shall be at peace with thee.’ All things serve the soul that serves God, and all war against him who wars against his Maker. The way of the Lord cannot but further and help all who love and serve Him. For them all things must work together for good. By the very laws of God’s own being, which necessarily shape all His actions, the whole ‘stream of tendency without us makes for righteousness.’ In the one course of life we go with the stream of divine activity which pours from the throne of God. In the other we are like men trying to row a boat up Niagara. All the rush of the mighty torrent will batter us back. Our work will be doomed to destruction, and ourselves to shame. For ever and ever to be good is to be well. An eternal truth lies in the facts that the same word ‘good’ means pleasant and right, and that sin and sorrow are both called ‘evil.’ All sin is self-inflicted sorrow, and every ‘rogue is a roundabout fool.’ So ask yourselves the question: ‘Is my life in harmony with, or opposed to, these omnipotent laws which rule the whole field of life?’ Still further, this same fact of the two-fold aspect and operation of the one way of the Lord will be made yet more evident in the future. It becomes us to speak very reverently and reticently about the matter, but I can conceive it possible that the one manifestation of God in a future life may be in substance the same, and yet that it may produce opposite effects upon oppositely disposed souls. According to the old mystical illustration, the same heat that melts wax hardens clay, and the same apocalypse of the divine nature in another world may to one man be life and joy, and to another man may be terror and despair. I do not dwell upon that; it is far too awful a thing for us to speak about to one another, but it is worth your taking to heart when you are indulging in easy anticipations that of course God is merciful and will bless and save everybody after he dies. Perhaps-I do not go any further than a perhaps-perhaps God cannot, and perhaps if a man has got himself into such a condition as it is possible for a man to get into, perhaps, like light upon a diseased eye, the purest beam may be the most exquisite pain, and the natural instinct may be to ‘call upon the rocks and the hills to fall upon them’ and cover them up in a more genial darkness from that Face, to see which should be life and blessedness.
People speak of future rewards and punishments as if they were given and inflicted by simple and divine volition, and did not stand in any necessary connection with holiness on the one hand or with sin on the other. I do not deny that some portion of both bliss and sorrow may be of such a character. But there is a very important and wide region in which our actions here must automatically bring consequences hereafter of joy or sorrow, without any special retributive action of God’ s.
We have only to keep in view one or two things about the future which we know to be true, and we shall see this. Suppose a man with his memory of all his past life perfect, and his conscience stimulated to greater sensitiveness and clearer judgment, and all opportunities ended of gratifying tastes and appetites, whose food is in this world, while yet the soul has become dependent on them for ease and comfort, What more is needed to make a hell? And the supposition is but the statement of a fact. We seem to forget much; but when the waters are drained off all the lost things will be found at the bottom. Conscience gets dulled and sophisticated here. But the icy cold of death will wake it up, and the new position will give new insight into the true character of our actions. You see how often a man at the end of life has his eyes cleared to see his faults. But how much more will that be the case hereafter! When the rush of passion is past, and you are far enough from your life to view it as a whole, holding it at arm’s length, you will see better what it looks like. There is nothing improbable in supposing that inclinations and tastes which have been nourished for a lifetime may survive the possibility of indulging them in another life, as they often do in this; and what can be worse than such a thirst for one drop of water, which never can be tasted more? These things are certain, and no more is needed to make sin produce, by necessary consequence, misery, and ruin; while similarly, goodness brings joy, peace, and blessing.
But again, the self-revelation of God has this same double aspect.
‘The way of the Lord’ may mean His process by which He reveals His character. Every truth concerning Him may be either a joy or a terror to men. All His ‘attributes’ are builded into ‘a strong tower, into which the righteous runneth, and is safe,’ or else they are builded into a prison and torture-house. So the thought of God may either be a happy and strengthening one, or an unwelcome one. ‘I remembered God, and was troubled’ says one Psalmist. What an awful confession-that the thought of God disturbed him! The thought of God to some of us is a very unwelcome one, as unwelcome as the thought of a detective to a company of thieves. Is not that dreadful? Music is a torture to some ears: and there are people who have so alienated their hearts and wills from God that the Name which should be ‘their dearest faith’ is not only their ‘ghastliest doubt,’ but their greatest pain. O brethren, the thought of God and all that wonderful complex of mighty attributes and beauties which make His Name should be our delight, the key to all treasures, the end of all sorrows, our light in darkness, our life in death, our all in all. It is either that to us, or it is something that we would fain forget. Which is it to you?
Especially the Gospel has this double aspect. Our text speaks of the distinction between the righteous and evil doers; but how to pass from the one class to the other, it does not tell us. The Gospel is the answer to that question. It tells us that though we are all ‘workers of iniquity,’ and must, therefore, if such a text as this were the last word to be spoken on the matter, share in the ruin which smites the opponent of the divine will, we may pass from that class; and by simple faith in Him who died on the Cross for all workers of iniquity, may become of those righteous on whose side God works in all His way, who have all His attributes drawn up like an embattled army in their defence, and have His mighty name for their refuge.
As the very crown of the ways of God, the work of Christ and the record of it in the Gospel have most eminently this double aspect. God meant nothing but the salvation of the whole world when He sent us this Gospel. His ‘way’ therein was pure, unmingled, universal love. We can make that great message untroubled blessing by simply accepting it. Nothing more is needed but to take God at His word, and to close with His sincere and earnest invitation. Then Christ’s work becomes the fortress in which we are guarded from sin and guilt, from the arrows of conscience, and the fiery darts of temptation. But if not accepted, then it is not passive, it is not nothing. If rejected, it does more harm to a man than anything else can, just because, if accepted, it would have done him more good. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. The pillar which symbolised the presence of God sent down influences on either side; to the trembling crowd of the Israelites on the one hand, to the pursuing ranks of the Egyptians on the other; and though the pillar was one, opposite effects streamed from it, and it was ‘a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these.’ Everything depends on which side of the pillar you choose to see. The ark of God, which brought dismay and death among false gods and their worshippers, brought blessing into the humble house of Obed Edom, the man of Gath, with whom it rested for three months before it was set in its place in the city of David. That which is meant to be the savour of life unto life must either be that or the savour of death unto death.
Jesus Christ is something to each of us. For you who have heard His name ever since you were children, your relation to Him settles your condition and your prospects, and moulds your character. Either He is for you the tried corner-stone, the sure foundation, on which whosoever builds will not be confounded, or He is the stone of stumbling, against which whosoever stumbles will be broken, and which will crush to powder whomsoever it falls upon, ‘This Child is set for the rise’ or for the fall of all who hear His name. He leaves no man at the level at which He found him, but either lifts him up nearer to God, and purity and joy, or sinks him into an ever-descending pit of darkening separation from all these. Which is He to you? Something He must be-your strength or your ruin. If you commit your souls to Him in humble faith, He will be your peace, your life, your Heaven. If you turn from His offered grace, He will be your pain, your death, your torture. ‘What maketh Heaven, that maketh hell.’ Which do you choose Him to be?
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn v27(See Scofield "Psa 19:9")
fear
(See Scofield "Psa 19:9")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn vv27–31v. 27. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days,…
v. 27. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days, adding to their number; but the years of the wicked shall be shortened, their span of life will not reach the normal length.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv28, 31the years of wicked people
the years of wicked people
Here "years" represent the time a person lives. AT: "the lifetime of the evil person" (See: Metaphor)
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will never be overthrown
This can be stated as active and positive: AT: "will be secure" (See: Litotes and Active or Passive)
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv27, 30 The time of their prosperity shall be short because…
The time of their prosperity shall be short because of their great fall, though they seem to live long.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv27–31 Pro 10:27 The fear of the LORD prolongeth days:…
Pro 10:27 The fear of the LORD prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.
Ver. 27. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.] Heb., Addeth days, viz., beyond expectation or likelihood in a course of nature. "The days of mourning for my father are at hand," said bloody Esau, "and then will I slay my brother Jacob." {Gen 27:41} But threatened men, if they fear God especially, {Ecc 8:12-13} live long. For even Isaac who died soonest, lived above fifty years beyond this. {See Trapp on "Exo 20:12"}
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But the years of the wicked shall be shortened.] "Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldst thou die before thy time?" {Ecc 7:17} Sin brings death, and the worst of deaths, an unseasonable death, when it were better for a man to do anything than to die; for to such, death is a trap door to hell: and as their friends are scrambling for their goods, the worms for their bodies, so are the devils for their souls.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv27–31 Prolongeth days; partly because it gives them a title…
Prolongeth days; partly because it gives them a title to the promise of long life, as well as to other promises; partly because it gladdeth the heart, which doth good like a medicine, Pro 17:22, and preserves a man from those wicked practices which tend to the shortening of the days.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv27, 29, 31 Observe, 1. Religion lengthens men's lives and crowns their…
Observe, 1. Religion lengthens men's lives and crowns their hopes. What man is he that loves life? Let him fear God, and that will secure him from many things that would prejudice his life, and secure to him life enough in this world and eternal life in the other; the fear of the Lord will add days more than was expected, will add them endlessly, will prolong them to the days of eternity. What man is he that would see good days? Let him be religious, and then his days shall not only be many, but happy, very happy as well as very many, for the hope of the righteous shall be gladness; they shall have what they hope for, to their unspeakable satisfaction. It is something future and unseen that they place their happiness in (Rom 8:24, Rom 8:25), not what they have in hand, but what they have in hope, and their hope will shortly be swallowed up in fruition, and it will be their everlasting gladness. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. 2. Wickedness shortens men's lives, and frustrates their hopes: The years of the wicked, that are spent in the pleasures of sin and the drudgery of the world, shall be shortened. Cut down the trees that cumber the ground. And whatever comfort or happiness a wicked man promises himself, in this world or the other, he will be frustrated; for the expectation of the wicked shall perish; his hope shall be turned into endless despair.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv27–31 The fear of the Lord prolongeth days,.... Not beyond…
The fear of the Lord prolongeth days,.... Not beyond the time fixed in the unalterable purposes and decrees of God, Job 14:5; but longer than some others, or than those that fear the Lord expect to live; or longer than, according to the course of nature, and the weakness of their constitutions, it could be thought they should live. Long life is promised to them that fear the Lord; godliness has the promise of this life and of that to come; the fear of the Lord is the means of preserving persons from those things which are pernicious to the health of men, and so of prolonging their days; as well as it has length of days, for ever and ever, even eternal life, annexed to it; see Psa 34:11;
but the years of the wicked shall be shortened; through diseases, which their sins bring upon them, which cut them off before they have lived out half their days; or by means of which, their sins, they come into the hand of the civil magistrate, and die before their time; or are taken off in their full strength by the immediate judgment of God, as were Ananias and Sapphira; and so they die in the midst of their days; and before the time, which, according to the course of nature, and the common period of life, in all human probability they might have arrived unto, Psa 55:23.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv28–30 Gladness - Shall be accomplished, and turned into enjoyment.
Gladness - Shall be accomplished, and turned into enjoyment.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv28–31 Verse 28. The expectation of the wicked shall perish.]…
Verse 28. The expectation of the wicked shall perish.] A wicked man is always imposing on himself by the hope of God's mercy and final happiness; and he continues hoping, till he dies without receiving that mercy which alone would entitle him to that glory.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv27, 29, 31 Pro 10:27-28. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days…
Pro 10:27-28. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days — For it gives those who are influenced by it a title to the promise of long life, as well as to other promises; it gladdens their hearts, which does good like a medicine, Pro 17:22; and it preserves them from those wicked practices which tend to the shortening of a man’s days. The hope of the righteous shall be gladness — Though at present it be mixed with doubts, and fears, and disappointments, yet at last it shall be accomplished and turned into enjoyment; but the expectation of the wicked, &c. — Shall be utterly frustrated, and so shall end in sorrow.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv28–31 Transpose “hope” and “expectation.” The expectant waiting of the…
Transpose “hope” and “expectation.” The expectant waiting of the righteous is joyful at the time, and ends in joy: the eager hope of the wicked comes to nought.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Charles Bridges 1846 · Public Domain On vv27–31 The fear of the LORD is not a single…
The fear of the LORD is not a single grace. It includes the substance of all godly tempers. For all are radically one principle, from one source. It essentially differs from the fear of the wicked. They fear those whom they hate. The child of God — whom he loves. Whether his temporal life be shortened or prolonged, he lives long in a little time. He is an infinite gainer by the contraction of life; when his days are prolonged and swallowed up in the one unclouded day, of which "the sun shall no more go down." (Pro 9:11 . Psa 91:16 . Isa 60:19 .) Justly is the fear of the LORD contrasted with the wicked; because the absence of this grace is their distinguishing mark (Psa 36:1 ), the principle of all their ungodliness. (Rom 3:10-18 .) And often do we see the letter of this curse realized in the shortening of their years. Excessive worldliness wears out the spring of life (Ecc 5:10-12 ), and often brings it to an untimely end.†1 Sometimes the God of vengeance breaks out, and "takes away" the darling offender "with his stroke." (Job 36:18 . 1Sa 2:32 ; 1Sa 4:11 . Act 5:1-10 .) Yet, if he be "visited after the visitation of all men," awful indeed is the course of a long life wasted in folly and sin; living little in a long time — "The sinner, being an hundred years old, shall be accursed." (Isa 65:20 .)
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†1 Impurity, Pro 5:9-11 . Drunkenness, Pro 23:29-32 . Malice, Psa 55:23 . 1Ki 2:31-44 . Wickedness, Psa 37:9, Psa 37:20 . Ecc 7:17 . Jer 17:11 . Compare Job 15:32-33 ; Job 22:15-16 .
Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv29–30 Evil. conscience upbraids them, and punishment is before their…
Evil. conscience upbraids them, and punishment is before their eyes. (Haydock) Magna vis est conscientiæ. (Cicero, pro Mil.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv27–31 (Compare Pro 9:11; Psa 55:23).
(Compare Pro 9:11; Psa 55:23).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv27–31 27. Prolongeth — Literally, addeth.
27. Prolongeth — Literally, addeth.
Shortened — Cut off short, curtailed, because they feared not Jehovah. Compare Pro_3:2; Pro_9:11; Pro_14:27; Psa_55:23; Ecc_7:17; Ecc_8:12-13.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv27, 29, 30, 31 27. Comp. Pro_3:2.
27. Comp. Pro_3:2.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv27, 29, 30, 31 (27) The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.—The special…
(27) The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.—The special Old Testament blessing for obedience (comp. Pro_9:11), often fulfilled now, too, in the case of those who live on to old age, in the quiet fulfilment of duty; while others are shortening their lives by excessive anxieties, or the pursuit of pleasure.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv27–31 The fear of the Lord prolongeth days. The premise…
The fear of the Lord prolongeth days. The premise of long life as the reward of a religious conversation is often found in our book, where temporal retribution is set forth. (see Pro_3:2 Pro_9:11 Pro_14:27) Shall be shortened, as Psa_55:23 Ecc_7:17.
Vers. 27-32. Impression by tautology.
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These verses contain mostly iterations of maxims already delivered. (on ver. 27, see on Pro_3:2 Pro_9:11; on ver. 28, see on ver. 24; Pro_11:7) That religion is a protector to the man of good conscience, while overthrow awaits the ungodly, again brings out an often expressed thought with emphasis. (ver. 30; see on ver. 25; Pro_3:21) Vers, 31, 32 again contrast the speech of the good and the wicked; the former like a sappy and fruitful tree, the latter destined to oblivion; the former appealing to the sense of beauty and grace, the latter shocking by its deformity.
I THERE IS A SAMENESS IN GOD. He does not and cannot change. He is invariable substance, unalterable will and law.
II THERE IS A SAMENESS IN NATURE. The heavens above us, with all their worlds, the great mountains and features of the landscape, the daily sights of sunrise and evening, form and colour. Abraham and Solomon looked upon essentially the same world with ourselves.
III THERE IS A SAMENESS IN HUMAN NATURE its passions, strength, and weakness. The same types of character appear and reappear in every age in relatively new forms. And it is proverbial that history repeats itself.
IV THE ESSENTIAL RELATIONS OF MAN TO GOD MUST BE THE SAME IN EVERY AGE. Hence the teacher"s deliverances must constantly recur to the same great points.
V THAT WHICH VARIES IS THE TRIVIAL OR TRANSIENT ELEMENT; THAT WHICH DOES NOT VARY IS THE SUBLIME AND THE ETERNAL.
VI EVERY TRUE TEACHER MAY THUS VARY THE FORM OF HIS INSTRUCTION AS MUCH AS HE WILL. Let him see to it that he works in unison with God and nature, experience, the conscience, and leaves a few great impressions firmly fixed in the mind. "Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. J.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv27, 28, 29, 31 The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.
Pro_10:27
The fear of the Lord prolongeth days.
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Long life a promised blessing
We may wish for one another long life. Every one wishes it for himself. It is a mistake to regard this wish as an infirmity. Strong love of life is not necessarily sinful.
1. Long life is distinctly promised in Scripture as a blessing to Gods people, both in the Old and New Testaments.
2. See why long life is a blessing. Because God rewards the good works of His people. He enables them to do good works, and rewards their work. The reward is not salvation but glory. Life, like health, intellect, influence, is a talent, lent to us for our Masters service and our own profit; the greater the loan the larger the profit; the longer it is in trust, the fuller the results. There are difficulties in the way of accepting this truth. One is the seemingly contradictory language of Scripture on the subject. Some passages speak of early departure as a blessing. This is true only in special cases. And we must distinguish between things good and desirable in themselves, and things which become so by Gods appointment. Another objection is this--Admitting that long life is a blessing, and a promised blessing, still we do not see the fulfilment of the promise. We see young saints departing, and old sinners remaining. In reply it may be urged that, if we could take the average of life, we should find it to be in favour of godly men. And the exceptions to the rule are more apparent than real. In many cases we see only the pious death, we are not acquainted with the whole previous life. It may be that the good man, whose early death so distresses and perplexes us, has, in early life, deserved that his days should have been thus shortened. And the cases of early death are simply exceptions to a generally working law.
3. What practical bearing shall this truth have upon our lives? We have rescued this text from the strained interpretation of those who do not look on long life as in itself a blessing. We have learned the true meaning and use of this longing after life which all men feel. It is no small gain to our peace of mind, when we can see that this love of life is not always an infirmity or a sin, but that the Christian may lawfully desire long life, as a longer time of working and suffering for Christ. And such a lawful desire for long life gives the strongest motive for rightly using life as it passes.
4. The tendency of vice is to shorten mens days. The text implies that, as life is a talent given to be rightly used, so, if abused, it is taken away from the possessor. We desire a longer life for the ungodly and careless, because we know that life is an opportunity for salvation; we would give the wicked further chance of repentance. (Abp. W. C. Magee.)
The fear of the Lord prolongeth days
There is no doubt about it. The fear of the Lord leads to virtuous habits, and these prevent that waste of life which comes of sin and vice. The holy rest which springs out of faith in the Lord Jesus also greatly helps a man when he is ill. Every physician rejoices to have a patient whose mind is fully at ease. Worry kills, but confidence in God is like healing medicine. We have therefore all the arrangements for long life, and if it be really for our good, we shall see a good old age, and come to our graves as shocks of corn in their season. Let us not be overcome with sudden expectation of death the moment we have a finger-ache, but let us rather expect that we may have to work on through a considerable length of days. And what if we should soon be called to the higher sphere? Certainly there would be nothing to deplore in such a summons, but everything to rejoice in. Living or dying we are the Lords. If we live, Jesus will be with us; if we die, we shall be with Jesus. The truest lengthening of life is to live while we live, wasting no time, but using every hour for the highest ends. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv27–30 MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_10:27
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_10:27
LONG LIFE
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This verse must be looked at—
I. Generally. The fear of the Lord prolongs life because, other things being equal, godliness tends to bodily health. A good man governs his life by some kind of law, his passions and inclinations do not play the lord over his conscience and will. This has a beneficial influence upon his bodily health. He has contentment with his present lot, trust in his God amid all the anxieties of life, and hope for the future. Such a state of mind tends to soundness of bodily health, whereas the manner of life of a godless man is opposed to health and consequently to long life. If a complicated machine is permitted to work with some of its parts improperly adjusted and fretting against each other at every turn of the wheel, the friction will soon wear away the parts, and ere long they will cease to act. A soul without godliness is a complicated mechanism which has never been rightly adjusted. There is no ruling principle, no guiding hand, one passion wars against another, the man bears the burden of life alone, he is at times a prey to the fears spoken of in Pro_10:24, and the rule of all these devils in the soul has a tendency to wear out the body before its time. This is a truth universally admitted. But the words must also be regarded—
II. Relatively. That is, with a due regard to other circumstances. The length of a good man’s life does not always depend upon himself, but upon the age in which he lives—upon the people by whom he is surrounded. The godliness of Abel shortened his life very materially. If his works had not been righteous, his brother would not have murdered him. The first Christian martyr met with an early and a violent death because he was a “man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost” (Act_6:5); and the fear of the Lord has shortened the days of millions since then. The ranks of the “noble army of martyrs” have been filled up by volunteers of every age and many nations since Stephen fell asleep, testifying to the fact that, so far as life in this world is concerned, other things must be taken into consideration.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
There is no such wholesome air—there is no such kindly physic—there is no such sovereign cordial—as the fear of the Lord. That makes the days of the godly as long as the years of the wicked.—Jermin.
The righteous’ days are great and noble, and the wicked’s days are mean and small. And this is the meaning of the Proverb, “Made little,” literally, “shortened” (E.V.). We thought at first that this was decisive against our sense, and against our rendering of all the verses expounded in chap. 3. (Pro_10:2-16). Our thought of this was increased by Job_14:1, and by all the expositions. But when we turned to Psa_102:23, our own sense was wonderfully confirmed. That verse reads, “He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days:” where “shortened” must have a sense coincident with continued living. And what that sense is, such passages as these: “Is my hand shortened?” (Isa_50:2), “The soul of the people was (lit.) shortened,” “The days of his youth hast Thou shortened” (Num_21:4; Psa_89:45), and nearly all the other instances strikingly confirm. The meaning is, Wisdom makes our days grander and grander, and Impenitence makes them weaker, and always of less account.—Miller.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v29
Proverbs
THE TWO-FOLD ASPECT OF THE DIVINE WORKING
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Pro 10:29.
You observe that the words ‘shall be,’ in the last clause, are a supplement. They are quite unnecessary, and in fact they rather hinder the sense. They destroy the completeness of the antithesis between the two halves of the verse. If you leave them out, and suppose that the ‘way of the Lord’ is what is spoken of in both clauses, you get a far deeper and fuller meaning. ‘The way of the Lord is strength to the upright; but destruction to the workers of iniquity.’ It is the same way which is strength to one man and ruin to another, and the moral nature of the man determines which it shall be to him. That is a penetrating word, which goes deep down. The unknown thinkers, to whose keen insight into the facts of human life we are indebted for this Book of Proverbs, had pondered for many an hour over the perplexed and complicated fates of men, and they crystallised their reflections at last in this thought. They have in it struck upon a principle which explains a great many things, and teaches us a great many solemn lessons. Let us try to get a hold of what is meant, and then to look at some applications and illustrations of the principle.
I. First, then, let me just try to put clearly the meaning and bearing of these words. ‘The way of the Lord’ means, sometimes in the Old Testament and sometimes in the New, religion, considered as the way in which God desires a man to walk. So we read in the New Testament of ‘the way’ as the designation of the profession and practice of Christianity; and ‘the way of the Lord’ is often used in the Psalms for the path which He traces for man by His sovereign will.
But that, of course, is not the meaning here. Here it means, not the road in which God prescribes that we should walk, but that road in which He Himself walks; or, in other words, the sum of the divine action, the solemn footsteps of God through creation, providence, and history. ‘His goings forth are from everlasting.’ ‘His way is in the sea.’ ‘His way is in the sanctuary.’ Modern language has a whole set of phrases which mean the same thing as the Jew meant by ‘the way of the Lord,’ only that God is left out. They talk about the ‘current of events,’ ‘the general tendency of things,’ ‘the laws of human affairs,’ and so on. I, for my part, prefer the old-fashioned ‘Hebraism.’ To many modern thinkers the whole drift and tendency of human affairs affords no sign of a person directing these. They hear the clashing and grinding of opposing forces, the thunder as of falling avalanches, and the moaning as of a homeless wind, but they hear the sounds of no footfalls echoing down the ages. This ancient teacher had keener ears. Well for us if we share his faith, and see in all the else distracting mysteries of life and history, ‘the way of the Lord!’
But not only does the expression point to the operation of a personal divine Will in human affairs, but it conceives of that operation as one, a uniform and consistent whole. However complicated, and sometimes apparently contradictory, the individual events were, there was a unity in them, and they all converged on one result. The writer does not speak of ‘ways,’ but of ‘the way,’ as a grand unity. It is all one continuous, connected, consistent mode of operation from beginning to end.
The author of this proverb believed something more about the way of the Lord. He believed that although it is higher than our way, still, a man can know something about it; and that whatever may be enigmatical, and sometimes almost heart-breaking, in it, one thing is sure-that as we have been taught of late years in another dialect, it ‘makes for righteousness.’ ‘Clouds and darkness are round about Him,’ but the Old Testament writers never falter in the conviction, which was the soul of all their heroism and the life blood of their religion, that in the hearts of the clouds and darkness, ‘Justice and judgment are the foundations of His throne.’ The way of the Lord, says this old thinker, is hard to understand, very complicated, full of all manner of perplexities and difficulties, and yet on the whole the clear drift and tendency of the whole thing is discernible, and it is this: it is all on the side of good. Everything that is good, and everything that does good, is an ally of God’ s, and may be sure of the divine favour and of the divine blessing resting upon it.
And just because that is so clear, the other side is as true; the same way, the same set of facts, the same continuous stream of tendency, which is all with and for every form of good, is all against every form of evil. Or, as one of the Psalmists puts the same idea, ‘The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open unto their cry. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil.’ The same eye that beams in lambent love on ‘the righteous’ burns terribly to the evil doer. ‘The face of the Lord’ means the side of the divine nature which is turned to us, and is manifested by His self-revealing activity, so that the expression comes near in meaning to ‘the way of the Lord,’ and the thought in both cases is the same, that by the eternal law of His being, God’s actions must all be for the good and against the evil.
They do not change, but a man’s character determines which aspect of them he sees and has to experience. God’s way has a bright side and a dark. You may take which you like. You can lay hold of the thing by whichever handle you choose. On the one side it is convex, on the other concave. You can approach it from either side, as you please. ‘The way of the Lord’ must touch your ‘way.’ Your cannot alter that necessity. Your path must either run parallel in the same direction with His, and then all His power will be an impulse to bear you onward; or it must run in the opposite direction, and then all His power will be for your ruin, and the collision with it will crush you as a ship is crushed like an egg-shell, when it strikes an iceberg. You can choose which of these shall befall you.
And there is a still more striking beauty about the saying, if we give the full literal meaning to the word ‘strength.’ It is used by our translators, I suppose, in a somewhat archaic and peculiar signification, namely, that of a stronghold. At all events the Hebrew means a fortress, a place where men may live safe and secure; and if we take that meaning, the passage gains greatly in force and beauty. This ‘way of the Lord’ is like a castle for the shelter of the shelterless good man, and behind those strong bulwarks he dwells impregnable and safe. Just as a fortress is a security to the garrison, and a frowning menace to the besiegers or enemies, so the ‘name of the Lord is a strong tower,’ and the ‘way of the Lord’ is a fortress. If you choose to take shelter within it, its massive walls are your security and your joy. If you do not, they frown down grimly upon you, a menace and a terror. How differently, eight hundred years ago, Normans and Saxons looked at the square towers that were built all over England to bridle the inhabitants! To the one they were the sign of the security of their dominion; to the other they were the sign of their slavery and submission. Torture and prison-houses they might become; frowning portents they necessarily were. ‘The way of the Lord’ is a castle fortress to the man that does good, and to the man that does evil it is a threatening prison, which may become a hell of torture. It is ‘ruin to the workers of iniquity.’ I pray you, settle for yourself which of these it is to be to you.
II. And now let me say a word or two by way of application, or illustration, of these principles that are here.
First, let me remind you how the order of the universe is such that righteousness is life and sin is death. This universe and the fortunes of men are complicated and strange. It is hard to trace any laws, except purely physical ones, at work. Still, on the whole, things do work so that goodness is blessedness, and badness is ruin. That is, of course, not always true in regard of outward things, but even about them it is more often and obviously true than we sometimes recognise. Hence all nations have their proverbs, embodying the generalised experience of centuries, and asserting that, on the whole, ‘honesty is the best policy,’ and that it is always a blunder to do wrong. What modern phraseology calls ‘laws of nature,’ the Bible calls ‘the way of the Lord’; and the manner in which these help a man who conforms to them, and hurt or kill him if he does not, is an illustration on a lower level of the principle of our text. This tremendous congeries of powers in the midst of which we live does not care whether we go with it or against it, only if we do the one we shall prosper, and if we do the other we shall very likely be made an end of. Try to stop a train, and it will run over you and murder you; get into it, and it will carry you smoothly along. Our lives are surrounded with powers, which will carry our messages and be our slaves if we know how to command nature by obeying it, or will impassively strike us dead if we do not.
Again, in our physical life, as a rule, virtue makes strength, sin brings punishment. ‘Riotous living’ makes diseased bodies. Sins in the flesh are avenged in the flesh, and there is no need for a miracle to bring it about that he who sows to the flesh shall ‘of the flesh reap corruption.’ God entrusts the punishment of the breach of the laws of temperance and morality in the body to the ‘natural’ operation of such breach. The inevitable connection between sins against the body and disease in the body, is an instance of the way of the Lord-the same set of principles and facts-being strength to one man and destruction to another. Hundreds of young men in Manchester-some of whom are listening to me now, no doubt-are killing themselves, or at least are ruining their health, by flying in the face of the plain laws of purity and self-control. They think that they must ‘have their fling,’ and ‘obey their instincts,’ and so on. Well, if they must, then another ‘must’ will insist upon coming into play-and they must reap as they have sown, and drink as they have brewed, and the grim saying of this book about profligate young men will be fulfilled in many of them. ‘His bones are full of the iniquity of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the grave.’ Be not deceived, God is not mocked, and His way avenges bodily transgressions by bodily sufferings.
And then, in higher regions, on the whole, goodness makes blessedness, and evil brings ruin. All the powers of God’s universe, and all the tenderness of God’s heart are on the side of the man that does right. The stars in their courses fight against the man that fights against Him; and on the other side, in yielding thyself to the will of God and following the dictates of His commandments, ‘Thou shalt make a league with the beasts of the field, and the stones of the field shall be at peace with thee.’ All things serve the soul that serves God, and all war against him who wars against his Maker. The way of the Lord cannot but further and help all who love and serve Him. For them all things must work together for good. By the very laws of God’s own being, which necessarily shape all His actions, the whole ‘stream of tendency without us makes for righteousness.’ In the one course of life we go with the stream of divine activity which pours from the throne of God. In the other we are like men trying to row a boat up Niagara. All the rush of the mighty torrent will batter us back. Our work will be doomed to destruction, and ourselves to shame. For ever and ever to be good is to be well. An eternal truth lies in the facts that the same word ‘good’ means pleasant and right, and that sin and sorrow are both called ‘evil.’ All sin is self-inflicted sorrow, and every ‘rogue is a roundabout fool.’ So ask yourselves the question: ‘Is my life in harmony with, or opposed to, these omnipotent laws which rule the whole field of life?’ Still further, this same fact of the two-fold aspect and operation of the one way of the Lord will be made yet more evident in the future. It becomes us to speak very reverently and reticently about the matter, but I can conceive it possible that the one manifestation of God in a future life may be in substance the same, and yet that it may produce opposite effects upon oppositely disposed souls. According to the old mystical illustration, the same heat that melts wax hardens clay, and the same apocalypse of the divine nature in another world may to one man be life and joy, and to another man may be terror and despair. I do not dwell upon that; it is far too awful a thing for us to speak about to one another, but it is worth your taking to heart when you are indulging in easy anticipations that of course God is merciful and will bless and save everybody after he dies. Perhaps-I do not go any further than a perhaps-perhaps God cannot, and perhaps if a man has got himself into such a condition as it is possible for a man to get into, perhaps, like light upon a diseased eye, the purest beam may be the most exquisite pain, and the natural instinct may be to ‘call upon the rocks and the hills to fall upon them’ and cover them up in a more genial darkness from that Face, to see which should be life and blessedness.
People speak of future rewards and punishments as if they were given and inflicted by simple and divine volition, and did not stand in any necessary connection with holiness on the one hand or with sin on the other. I do not deny that some portion of both bliss and sorrow may be of such a character. But there is a very important and wide region in which our actions here must automatically bring consequences hereafter of joy or sorrow, without any special retributive action of God’ s.
We have only to keep in view one or two things about the future which we know to be true, and we shall see this. Suppose a man with his memory of all his past life perfect, and his conscience stimulated to greater sensitiveness and clearer judgment, and all opportunities ended of gratifying tastes and appetites, whose food is in this world, while yet the soul has become dependent on them for ease and comfort, What more is needed to make a hell? And the supposition is but the statement of a fact. We seem to forget much; but when the waters are drained off all the lost things will be found at the bottom. Conscience gets dulled and sophisticated here. But the icy cold of death will wake it up, and the new position will give new insight into the true character of our actions. You see how often a man at the end of life has his eyes cleared to see his faults. But how much more will that be the case hereafter! When the rush of passion is past, and you are far enough from your life to view it as a whole, holding it at arm’s length, you will see better what it looks like. There is nothing improbable in supposing that inclinations and tastes which have been nourished for a lifetime may survive the possibility of indulging them in another life, as they often do in this; and what can be worse than such a thirst for one drop of water, which never can be tasted more? These things are certain, and no more is needed to make sin produce, by necessary consequence, misery, and ruin; while similarly, goodness brings joy, peace, and blessing.
But again, the self-revelation of God has this same double aspect.
‘The way of the Lord’ may mean His process by which He reveals His character. Every truth concerning Him may be either a joy or a terror to men. All His ‘attributes’ are builded into ‘a strong tower, into which the righteous runneth, and is safe,’ or else they are builded into a prison and torture-house. So the thought of God may either be a happy and strengthening one, or an unwelcome one. ‘I remembered God, and was troubled’ says one Psalmist. What an awful confession-that the thought of God disturbed him! The thought of God to some of us is a very unwelcome one, as unwelcome as the thought of a detective to a company of thieves. Is not that dreadful? Music is a torture to some ears: and there are people who have so alienated their hearts and wills from God that the Name which should be ‘their dearest faith’ is not only their ‘ghastliest doubt,’ but their greatest pain. O brethren, the thought of God and all that wonderful complex of mighty attributes and beauties which make His Name should be our delight, the key to all treasures, the end of all sorrows, our light in darkness, our life in death, our all in all. It is either that to us, or it is something that we would fain forget. Which is it to you?
Especially the Gospel has this double aspect. Our text speaks of the distinction between the righteous and evil doers; but how to pass from the one class to the other, it does not tell us. The Gospel is the answer to that question. It tells us that though we are all ‘workers of iniquity,’ and must, therefore, if such a text as this were the last word to be spoken on the matter, share in the ruin which smites the opponent of the divine will, we may pass from that class; and by simple faith in Him who died on the Cross for all workers of iniquity, may become of those righteous on whose side God works in all His way, who have all His attributes drawn up like an embattled army in their defence, and have His mighty name for their refuge.
As the very crown of the ways of God, the work of Christ and the record of it in the Gospel have most eminently this double aspect. God meant nothing but the salvation of the whole world when He sent us this Gospel. His ‘way’ therein was pure, unmingled, universal love. We can make that great message untroubled blessing by simply accepting it. Nothing more is needed but to take God at His word, and to close with His sincere and earnest invitation. Then Christ’s work becomes the fortress in which we are guarded from sin and guilt, from the arrows of conscience, and the fiery darts of temptation. But if not accepted, then it is not passive, it is not nothing. If rejected, it does more harm to a man than anything else can, just because, if accepted, it would have done him more good. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow. The pillar which symbolised the presence of God sent down influences on either side; to the trembling crowd of the Israelites on the one hand, to the pursuing ranks of the Egyptians on the other; and though the pillar was one, opposite effects streamed from it, and it was ‘a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these.’ Everything depends on which side of the pillar you choose to see. The ark of God, which brought dismay and death among false gods and their worshippers, brought blessing into the humble house of Obed Edom, the man of Gath, with whom it rested for three months before it was set in its place in the city of David. That which is meant to be the savour of life unto life must either be that or the savour of death unto death.
Jesus Christ is something to each of us. For you who have heard His name ever since you were children, your relation to Him settles your condition and your prospects, and moulds your character. Either He is for you the tried corner-stone, the sure foundation, on which whosoever builds will not be confounded, or He is the stone of stumbling, against which whosoever stumbles will be broken, and which will crush to powder whomsoever it falls upon, ‘This Child is set for the rise’ or for the fall of all who hear His name. He leaves no man at the level at which He found him, but either lifts him up nearer to God, and purity and joy, or sinks him into an ever-descending pit of darkening separation from all these. Which is He to you? Something He must be-your strength or your ruin. If you commit your souls to Him in humble faith, He will be your peace, your life, your Heaven. If you turn from His offered grace, He will be your pain, your death, your torture. ‘What maketh Heaven, that maketh hell.’ Which do you choose Him to be?
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v27 (See Scofield "Psa 19:9")
fear
(See Scofield "Psa 19:9")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv27–31 v. 27. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days,…
v. 27. The fear of the Lord prolongeth days, adding to their number; but the years of the wicked shall be shortened, their span of life will not reach the normal length.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv28, 31 the years of wicked people
the years of wicked people
Here "years" represent the time a person lives. AT: "the lifetime of the evil person" (See: Metaphor)
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will never be overthrown
This can be stated as active and positive: AT: "will be secure" (See: Litotes and Active or Passive)
translationWords
hope
joy
evil
Yahweh
integrity
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v30 10:30 This proverb connects with God’s covenant promises to…
10:30 This proverb connects with God’s covenant promises to Israel (see Deut 28:1-14, 63-68). Such connections are rare in the book of Proverbs.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.