Proverbs 14:32

The wicked is driven away in his wickedness,.... That is, at death, as the opposite clause shows; he is driven out of the world, his heart is so much set on; from all the good things of it, which are

The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.

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

Proverbs 14:32 The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.Ver. 32. The wicked is driven away in his wickedness.] Being arrested by death, as a cruel serjeant, in the devil’ s name, he is hurried away, and hurled into hell, as dying in his sins, and killed by death. And oh, what a dreadful shriek gives the guilty soul then to see itself launching into an infinite ocean of scalding lead, and must swim naked in it for ever! But the righteous hath hope in his death.] Death to the righteous, as the valley of Achor, is a door of hope to give entrance into paradise; to the wicked it is a trap door to hell. Improbi dum spirant, sperant: iustus etiam cum expirat, sperat. Aelian tells how he once heard a dying swan sing most sweetly and melodiously, which in her lifetime hath no such pleasant note. As, on the other side, syrens are said to sing curiously while they live, but to roar horribly when they die. Such is the case of the godly and the wicked when they come to die. ευφωνοτατονκαιωδικωτατον.

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

Verse 32. The wicked is driven away in his wickedness] He does not leave life cheerfully. Poor soul! Thou hast no hope in the other world, and thou leavest the present with the utmost regret! Thou wilt not go off; but God will drive thee. But the righteous hath hope in his death.] He rejoiceth to depart and be with Christ: to him death is gain; he is not reluctant to go-he flies at the call of God.

32. his wickedness] Lit. his evil; which may mean either, with R.V. text, the evil which he does, his evil-doing, or, with R.V. marg., the evil which he suffers, his calamity. The latter meaning preserves best the parallelism: when calamity overtakes the wicked it crushes him utterly (comp. Psalms 36:12), but even in his last extremity of death the righteous hath hope. hope in his death] which implies a belief in a future state. The same vivid contrast meets us in a more expanded form in Psalms 73. The “prosperity of the wicked,” in contrast to the hard lot of the righteous, had been the stumbling-block of the writer of the Psalm (Psalms 73:1-16). It was by considering “the end” both of the one and of the other, that his faith was re-established. The wicked are thrust down in their calamity, “How are they become a desolation in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors” (Proverbs 14:19): The righteous hath hope in his death, “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory” (Proverbs 14:24). Comp. Psalms 49:14-15. It is to be noticed that in both these Psalms (Psalms 73:24; Psalms 49:15) the same word, take, or receive, is used to express the hope of the Psalmist, as that by which the translation of Enoch is described, God took him (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5). The LXX. read, “but he that trusteth in his own integrity is righteous,” ὁδὲπεποιθὼςτῇἑαυτοῦὁσιότητιδίκαιος; on which Lange observes, “may not this divergent reading owe its origin to the endeavour to gain an antithesis as exact as possible to the ‘in his wickedness’ of the first clause?”

Consult marginal reference. The hope which abides even “in death” must look beyond it.

32. The wicked is driven away in his wickedness — Or, shall be thrust down, or, as we say, knocked down, in, by, or on account of, his baseness or badness. But the righteous hath hope in his death — Has a shelter or refuge.