Proverbs 29:10

The bloodthirsty hate the upright,.... Cain did Abel; and as the wicked world hate all good men, and persecute them, even unto death; but the just must seek his soul; either the soul of the

The bloodthirsty hate the upright: but the just seek his soul.

Hate the upright, and consequently seek their ruin, as is implied from the following clause. Seek his soul; either, 1. To require his soul or life at the hands of those who have taken it away. Or, 2. To preserve it from those who attempt to take it away, as this phrase is taken, , though commonly it signify to seek to destroy it.

Proverbs 29:10 The bloodthirsty hate the upright: but the just seek his soul.Ver. 10. The bloodthirsty hate the upright.] As Cain did Abel for his goodness, and as many bloody villains still, who bear about, and, so far as they dare, make use of Cain’ s club to knock on the head God’ s righteous Abels. All hatred is bloody, but especially the habit of hatred. No sight pleased Hannibal better than a ditch running over with man’ s blood. Nothing would satisfy Farnesius, the Pope’ s champion, but to ride his horse up to the skirts in the blood of the Lutherans. Charles IX of France, author of the Parisian Massacre, looking upon the dead carcase of the admiral, that stank by being long kept unburied, uttered this most stinking speech: Quam suaviter olet cadaver inimiei! - How sweet is the smell of an enemy’ s carcase! And the queen mother of Scotland, beholding the dead bodies of her Protestant subjects, whom she had slain in battle, said that she never saw a finer piece of tapestry in all her life. But the just seek his soul.] In a good sense; seek the salvation of it - as Christ did of his deadliest enemies; as Paul did of his countrymen the Jews, of whom five times he received forty stripes save one; as the disciples did of those spiteful Pharisees, that had causelessly accused them; as that martyr Master Saunders did. ‘ My lord,’ said he to Bishop Bonner, ‘ you seek my blood, and you shall have it. I pray God you may be so baptized in it that you may hereafter loathe bloodsucking, and so become a better man.’ And another time, when Steven Gardiner, being prettily nipped and touched by the same Saunders, said, ‘ Carry away this frenzy fool to prison’ ; he answered, that ‘ he did give God thanks, which had given him at the last a place of rest and quietness, where he might pray for the bishop’ s conversion.’ ‘ If ye will not hear me speak for myself,’ said another martyr, ‘ then send me to my prison again among my toads and frogs, which will not interrupt me, while I pray to God for you.’ Acts and Mon., fol. 1358. Ibid.

(10) The bloodthirsty hate the upright.—Or, perfect man. “for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness” (2 Corinthians 6:14); the life of the perfect man is a continual reproach to them. But the just (or upright) seek his soul—i.e. care for the life of the perfect; their uprightness shows itself in active help-giving.

10. seek] i.e. care for, as R.V. marg. Comp. Psalms 142:4 [Hebrews 5], where however the Hebrew word, seek, is not the same as here. It is more in accordance with the use of the phrase to seek the life, to render, with R.V. text, The bloodthirsty hate him that is perfect:And as for the upright they seek his life.The LXX. however has: οἱδὲεὐθεῖςεὐθεῖςἐκζητήσουσιψυχὴναὐτοῦ; and the Vulg. justi autem quζrunt animam ejus.

Seek his soul - i. e., “Care for, watch over, his life” (compare Psalms 142:4).

10. The bloodthirsty — Literally, men of blood. Hate the upright — The perfect man, the man of integrity; or, they hate integrity itself. Seek his soul — Or, his life. The phrase is ambiguous.