Proverbs 28:1

The wicked flee when no man pursueth,.... Through the terrors of a guilty conscience, as in Cain and others; who fear where no immediate cause of fear is, are frightened with their own shadows; and

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.

CHAPTER 28 The character of the righteous and of the wicked, with the blessed fruits of integrity, and evil effects of sin, . The evil of concealing and blessedness of confessing sin, . The evil of oppression and violence, the benefit of industry and faithfulness, with sundry other observations, . The wicked flee when no man pursueth, because the conscience of their own guilt puts them into a continual expectation and dread of God’ s judgments. The righteous are bold; are courageous and resolute, having the witness of a good conscience, and the assurance of Divine favour and protection, and the supports and consolations of the Holy Ghost.

Proverbs 28:1 The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.Ver. 1. The wicked fly when none pursueth.] None but their own consciences. Facti sunt a corde suo fugitivi, as Tertullian hath it. Such a fearful fugitive was bloody Cain, who cried out, when there were yet few or none to pursue him, "Every man that meets me shall kill me." Such were those cursed Canaanites that were chased by God’ s hornet sent among them - that is, by the blood hounds of their own consciences. Such were those Syrians that, struck with a panic terror, fled for their lives, and left their rich camp for a booty to the Israelites. The shadow of the mountains seemed armed men to guilty Gaal. The Burgundians, expecting a battle, thought long thistles were lances. God sends a faintness into the hearts of the wicked, and the sound of a shaken leaf frightens them. In arithmetic, of nothing comes nothing, yet they fear where no fear is. As Cardinal Crescentius feared a fancied devil walking in his chamber like a great mastiff , and couching under his table as he was writing letters to Rome against the Protestants. As Richard III thought he saw in his sleep various images like terrible devils, pulling and hauling at him, after he had, Joab-like, slain two men more righteous than him, his two innocent nephews. As Charles IX of France, after the cruel massacre, could neither sleep nor wake without music to divert his self-accusing thoughts, so hotly was he haunted and followed with the furies of his own conscience. As the Spanish fleet, in 1588, Venit, vidit, fugit, as the Zealanders thereupon stamped their new coin. The Hollanders also stamped new money with this invincible armada, as the Spaniards in their pride had styled it, having this motto Impius fugit, nemine sequente, The wicked fly when no man pursueth. I pity the loss of their souls, saith a reverend man, that serve themselves as the Jesuit in Lancashire, followed by one that found his glove with a desire to restore it him, but pursued inwardly with a guilty conscience, leaps over a hedge, plunges into a gravel pit behind it unseen and unthought of, wherein he was drowned. But the righteous is bold as a lion.] Conscientia pura semper secura, A good conscience hath sure confidence; and he that hath it sits, Noah-like, mediis tranquillus in undis, quiet in the greatest combustions, freed, if not from the common destruction, yet from the common distraction; for he knows whom he hath trusted, and is sure that neither life nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, can ever sunder him from God’ s love in Christ. He is bold as a lion, saith the text; yea, as a young lion, that is in his hot blood, and therefore fears no other creature; yea, when he is fiercely pursued he will never once alter his gait, though he die for it.

XXVIII (1) The wicked flee when no man pursueth.—Comp. the curse pronounced upon Israel for disobedience (Leviticus 26:17; Leviticus 26:36). The righteous are bold as a lion.—Comp. Leviticus 26:8; 1 Samuel 17:32, sqq.; Psalms 91:1, sqq.

CHAPTER XXVIII The timidity of the wicked. Quick succession in the government of a country is a punishment to the land. Of the poor who oppress the poor. The upright poor man is preferable to the wicked rich man. The unprofitable conduct of the usurer. The prosperity of the righteous a cause of rejoicing. He is blessed who fears always. A wicked ruler a curse. The murderer generally execrated. The faithful man. The corrupt judge. The foolishness of trusting in one's own heart. The charitable man. When the wicked are elevated, it is a public evil. NOTES ON CHAP. XXVIII Verse 1. The wicked flee] Every wicked man, however bold he may appear, is full of dreary apprehensions relative to both worlds. But the righteous has true courage, being conscious of his own innocence, and the approbation of his God. The unpitious fleeith. - Old MS. Bible. This word is often used for impious, wicked, ungodly; hence it appears that our word pity anciently meant piety or godliness.

1. The wicked flee… righteous are bold — A sense of their own mis-doings makes men timorous, but conscious rectitude, with faith in God as the righteous ruler of the universe, gives strong confidence and a sense of security.