The Twenty-Seventh Saying involves
the treatment of righteous people by the unrighteous or wicked. One of the
expectations of those who are righteous is that God will protect them from wicked
people. A famous psalm that gave rise to
Luther’s great hymn,
A Mighty
Fortress is our God, is Psalm 46:
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in
trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way . . . The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of
Jacob is our fortress. Selah” (Psalm 46:1–11, ESV)
Bible stories abound in showing God’s protection His people. Israel’s voice reached the ears of the
Almighty and He rescued them from Egypt.
They faced constant danger and threat of annihilation even to the point
where the Persian empire was lawfully granted the right to wipe them up. Except for Queen Esther and the sovereign
mercy of God, that may have been their plight.
Except for Queen Esther and the sovereign mercy of God, that may have
been their end. One would expect that a
good king, a kind king, and importantly an omnipotent king would protect and
care for his subjects. Psalm 91 gives us
this comfort:
“Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place— the Most High, who is my refuge—
no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.”
(Psalm 91:9–10, ESV)
The Twenty-Seventh of the Thirty Sayings, gathered by Solomon, addresses
this issue and is recorded in Proverbs 24:15–16 (ESV)
15 Lie not in wait as a wicked man
against the dwelling of the righteous; do no violence to his home; 16 for the righteous falls seven times and
rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
It is a warning to those who might think it advantageous to
join with the wicked against the “dwelling” of the righteous. The home is his place of provision, rest and
freedom. “A man’s home is his castle, “so to speak. The NASB translation
carries the Hebrew a bit better in my opinion: “Do not destroy his resting
place.” The home is symbolically and extrinsically linked to one’s
well-being, his source of providence, his place of nourishment and rest. Don’t violate that.
Derek
Kidner points out that an “unscrupulous victory” is temporary. It “is never
permanent: you are fighting against God.”[1] This Wise Man isn’t gullible. He understands that sometimes the righteous
do “fall”, even “seven times” (That’s Hebrew for “a lot”!) The number”.
One might ask what the nature of that fall is. Matthew Henry takes that “fall” even a fall
into sin.[2] The phrase “seven times”, according to Bruce
Waltke portrays an intensification through to completion, meaning, “The
righteous don’t fall permanently. Life of the righteous does not pass without
unmerited suffering. Indeed, it may appear to end in final ruin like the boxer
knocked out for the count of ten of ten (i.e., its over) and like the
proverbial cat that used up his “ninth life” (i.e., his last chance).” [3] But
the encouragement is that he always rises. The word “for” in verse 16 indicates a
relationship between the fall of the righteous and the violence of the wicked. The
wicked have been the cause of the fall. “The righteous may fall, but they rise
again—not like the wicked, who are brought down for good (cf. 4:19;
Jer. 6:15; 8:15; 20:11).[4]
Everyone suffers injustice and personal attacks. Everyone suffers. But Proverb teaches us that when the wicked
stumble they remain fallen. A huge question in our day is “why does God permit
evil”? People ask that because it is obviously true. But the righteous see hope
despite the evil. The wicked
cannot. This begs the question, “who are
the righteous?” Beeson Divinity School
professor of Old Testament and Hebrew, Allen P. Ross puts it this way:
“The basic meaning of ‘righteous’ has to do with
conforming to the standard; in religious passages that standard is divine
revelation. The righteous are people who have entered into covenant with God by
faith and seek to live according to his word. The covenant that they have makes
them the people of God—God knows them, and because God knows them, they shall
never perish. They may do unrighteous things at times, but they know to find
forgiveness because they want to do what is right.”
Even though the righteous are often victims of the ruthless
and unprincipled, they do not remain victims forever. “Since the righteous rise after a violent and
final fall, his recovering points to his resurrection from death.[6] God causes even these events to work together
for their salvation (Heidelberg
Catechism, Question 1). He that started a good work in them will continue
until glorification (Philippians
1:6). The crucifixion of Christ seemed that a righteous man fell for the
last time. He did not. God raised Jesus from the grave, He ascended
back to Heaven where He reigns as a good and sovereign King over His subjects. The
Righteous Man did not ultimately fall but rose again in triumphant victory.
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the
wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but
his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams
of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In
all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that
the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor
sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but
the way of the wicked will perish.” (Psalm 1:1–6, ESV) (Emphasis mine)
[4] Koptak, P. E. (2003). Proverbs
(p. 563). Zondervan.
