Proverbs 11 Commentary
When the wicked die, that’s it – the story is over, end of hope. Verse 7. The Message Bible. It summarizes the message of the chapter.
What verse 7 hasn’t said is even more important. The saint has hope beyond the grave. No saint eats like it’s their last. No saint worries about a loss like that’s all there is to life. The hope of blessed eternity in the presence of God keeps the saint levelheaded.
The absence of God in an individual creates a hole. Men and women seek to fill that hole with greediness, entertainment, drugs, power, authority, and a host of other countless efforts. But it is all vanity, a chase after wind.
This chapter discounts such efforts by showing us the end product of vanity projects. Dishonest scales, pride, unfaithfulness, trust in wealth, gossip, and misplaced hope, the LORD God detests. He will punish evil.
The reader is warned. “Be sure of this: The wicked will not go unpunished.”
Rather than simply a collection of principles working and achieving desired ends, these teachings are strongly backed by the LORD Himself. The wicked will be punished by the LORD God and not exactly by the principles defined here.
The unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity. Righteousness delivers from death. Unless you see the Teacher behind these principles, you will likely miss the point. Noise-making in class is not punished by the rule itself but by the headmaster or the teacher. We are encouraged to see God behind the rules.
So we want to be righteous because of the LORD God not because of the principles here.
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