Proverbs 28

1. THE wicked flee when no man pursueth : But the righteous are bold as a lion.

2. For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof : But by men of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged.

3. A needy man that oppresseth the poor Is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food.

4. They that forsake the law praise the wicked : But such as keep the law contend with them.

5. Evil men understand not judgment : But they that seek the LORD understand all things.

6. Better is the poor that walketh in his integrity, Than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich.

7. Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son : But he that is a companion of gluttonous men shameth his father.

8. He that augmenteth his substance by usury and increase, Gathereth it for him that hath pity on the poor.

9. He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer is an abomination.

10. Whoso causeth the upright to go astray in an evil way, He shall fall himself into his own pit : But the perfect shall inherit good.

11. The rich man is wise in his own conceit ; But the poor that hath understanding searcheth him out.

12. When the righteous triumph, there is great glory : But when the wicked rise, men hide themselves.

13. He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper : But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy.

14. Happy is the man that feareth alway : But he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.

15. As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear ; So is a wicked ruler over a poor people.

16. The prince that lacketh understanding is also a great oppressor : But he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his days.

17. A man that is laden with the blood of any person Shall flee unto the pit ; let no man stay him.

18. Whoso walketh uprightly shall be delivered : But he that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once.

19. He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread : But he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough.

20. A faithful man shall abound with blessings : But he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be unpunished.

21. To have respect of persons is not good : Neither that a man should transgress for a piece of bread.

22. He that hath an evil eye hasteth after riches, And knoweth not that want shall come upon him.

23. He that rebuketh a man shall afterward find more favour Than he that flattereth with the tongue.

24. Whoso robbeth his father or his mother, and saith, It is no transgression ; The same is the companion of a destroyer.

25. He that is of a greedy spirit stirreth up strife : But he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat.

26. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool : But whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered.

27. He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack : But he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse.

28. When the wicked rise, men hide themselves : But when they perish, the righteous increase.

4. THROUGH a common sympathy the lawless praise the wicked; but the law-abiding stir up themselves to withstand them. Since bad men will sustain each other against law and order, it behooves the good to combine their efforts on the other side. H. C.

5. Asserts the deep interdependence of morality and intellect. We lose moral discernment in proportion as we do evil. We have a right judgment in all things in proportion as our heart seeks to know God. Compare James 1:23, 24. E. H. P.

6. Perverse in his ways. Tried, reliable integrity is far above riches as a qualification for either a citizen or a ruler—a sentiment not inappropriate to our own country and times. Solomon says expressively, “than he who perverts his double ways,” using the dual number to show that his moral ways are changeful, now this, now that—guided by no moral principle.

8. See 13:22. The retributions of God’s providence will appear in the history of great estates. God’s infinite justice and His wise regard to human welfare forbid His awarding unmingled and abiding prosperity to men notorious for fraud and oppression. Hence wealth, amassed by usury and unrighteousness, goes into the hands of one who will use it as God designed wealth should be used—to bless the needy. Let His name be praised for this! H. C.—The usurer preyeth upon the poor, he waxeth rich of the penury of his brother, he clotheth himself with the coat of the naked, he feedeth himself of the bread of the hungry, and devoureth his poor brother, as the great beasts do the smaller; than which, saith Ambrose, there is no greater inhumanity and cruelty. Rd. Turnbull.

9. If men will not hear God’s law, He will not hear their prayer. Refusing to hear His law, they are in actual rebellion against Him. Consequently their prayer to Him is only an insult, because it is simply asking Him not to hurt, but to bless men who are actual persistent rebels against His throne. Their prayer virtually begs permission to go on to sin all they will, and to be exempted from punishment therefor. And God might as well vacate His throne as to hear such prayer propitiously! H. C.

10. No form of evil is more hateful, no result of evil sadder, than the temptation by the wicked of those who have been righteous. Vice in such a case seems to win a twofold triumph. It gains its own ends and exults in the downfall of the good. But here also the triumph is suicidal. In any case the tempter will suffer the punishment he deserves, and the blameless, if true to themselves, will be strengthened and ennobled by the temptation. E. H. P.

11. Solomon means to say that riches do not necessarily presuppose wisdom; that some rich men may be sadly deficient, not only in profound knowledge, but in that fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of true wisdom; while some poor men may be truly rich in these treasures of the mind and of the heart. H. C.

12. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; for while he covers them he cannot possibly get rid of them; and their presence will vitiate all prosperity. Endure the shame of confessing them, that we may have the comfort of being delivered from them. G. Bowen.—There is the confession of sin extracted by unexpected disaster or by the foreboding of a deserved judgment; and there is the confession of sin freely and spontaneously given. Confession is wrung from some, not by a sense of the hatefulness of sin, but from a desire of thereby obtaining security from the judgment of God. But the Christian’s confession is a very different thing: he sees and feels sin to be hateful. What pain is to the body, that is sin to his soul. He owns that he has been guilty of it; and he pours out his confession of it freely, and fully, and explicitly before God. Cumming.

There is a covering of sin which proves a curse. There is a covering it, by not confessing it, or which is worse, by denying it—Gehazi’s covering—a covering of sin by a lie; and there is also a covering of sin by justifying ourselves in it. I have not done this thing, or I did no evil in it. All these are evil coverings; he that thus covereth his sin shall not prosper. But there is a blessed covering of sin—forgiveness of sin is the hiding it out of sight, and that’s the blessedness. Alleine.—Evangelical confession is the inlet to peace with God and the outlet of new obedience. Hamilton.

14. This fear is the wholesome fear of offending God by sin. Blessed is he who never loses this solemn fear of displeasing the great and holy God! On the contrary, he who hardens his heart against such fear and becomes reckless as to sin and its consequences shall surely fall into ruin. H. C.—“I have known a good old man,” says Bernard, “who, when he heard of any one that had committed some notorious offence, was wont to say within himself, He fell to-day, so may I to-morrow.” Now the reason why humble souls keep up in themselves a holy fear of falling is because that is the very best way to preserve them in their upward path. “Happy is the man that feareth always; but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.” T. Brooks.

A warning finger is, as it were, lifted. Take heed against the tendencies that lie in yourself and the temptations around you. The consciousness of the possibility of the danger is half the battle. “Blessed is the man that feareth always,” says the Psalm. “The confident”—by which is meant the presumptuous, and not the trustful—“goeth on and is punished.” The timid—by which I mean the self-distrustful—clings to God, because he knows his danger and is safe. If we think that we are on the verge of falling we are nearer standing than we ever are besides. To lay to heart the reality, and the imminence, and the gravity of the possibility that is disclosed here is an essential part of the means for preventing its becoming a reality. There is no security for us except in the continual temper of rooted self-distrust, for there is no motive that will drive us to the continual confidence in which alone is security, but the persistent pressure of that sense that in ourselves we are nothing, and cannot but fall. The dark underside of the triumphant confidence, which on its sunny side looks up to heaven and receives its light, is self-distrust. A. M.

16. Covetousness is constituted of self-love and self-care pushed to such deep intensity and such extravagant excess, as to pay very little willing respect to any laws of God or of man which may be in its way. Its constant tendency is to grow into an absorbing, grasping, insatiable, remorseless voracity, which will seize and hoard all that suits its appetite, with scarcely an inquiry, a care, or a conscience as to how much ownership may be violated, or how many and how prized may be the interests sacrificed. A heart drank up with such a ravenous passion, bent on the possessions of its neighbors; on cutting off their acres, occupying their buildings, opening their thrift into its own treasures; such a heart is a poor fountain of useful influence, a stinted spiritual contributor. Covetousness, in a heart intended for God’s service, is a thief in the specie vault; an obstruction in the arteries from the reservoirs which refresh the population. C. White.

Covetousness is one of the eldest born of sin, and a prime leader in the Satanic empire of evil; no nature is too lofty, no place too sacred for its presence; being a universal passion, no enterprise is too daring for it to attempt, no sphere too extended for its range. J. H.—Of all vices incident to human nature, none so powerfully and peculiarly carries the soul downward as covetousness does. It makes it all earth and dirt, burying that noble thing which can never die. So that, while the body is above ground, the soul is under it, and therefore must needs be in a state of darkness, while it converses in the regions of it. South.

19. “Followeth after” is more strictly chaseth after, runs eagerly with them. The antithesis is better preserved by following the original: The one shall have bread enough; the other poverty enough; the one, bread to satiety; the other poverty, also, to his heart’s content. H. C.

Those that are diligent in their callings take the way to live comfortably. He that tills his land, and tends his shop, and minds his business, whatever it is, he shall have plenty of bread, of that which is necessary for himself and his family, and with which he may be charitable to the poor; he shall eat the labor of his hands. Those that are idle, and careless, and company keepers, though they indulge themselves in living (as they think) easily and pleasantly, they take the way to live miserably. He that has land but does not till it, neglects his business, will not take pains, but follows after vain persons, joins with them in their frolics and vain sports, and idles away his time with them, he shall have poverty enough, shall be satiated or replenished with poverty, so the word is; he takes those courses which lead so directly to it that he seems to court it, and he shall have his fill of it. H—A world bringing forth fruit spontaneously might have suited a sinless race, but it would be unsuitable for mankind as they now are. If all men had plenty without labor the world would not be fit for living in. In every country, and under every kind of government, the unemployed are the most dangerous classes. Thus the necessity of labor has become a blessing to man. Arnot.

The Divine blessing is visibly breathed on “painful” and honorable diligence. The strength of the mind, the purity of the soul, the due discharge of our duties in life, are all involved in and dependent upon this one primary virtue. It seems but a small matter in itself—this industrious employment of our times and faculties; and yet if rightly directed—for, of course, there may be a wasted and ill-contrived diligence—what wonders will it not accomplish! A prompt yet prudent judgment, a capacity of seeing the true proportions and nature of things, a refined and disciplined imagination, a love of truth and beauty—all these are the rewards of the diligent man, whose enthusiasm for honest and righteous work raises him above the follies and iniquities of the world. W. H. D. Adams.—It is an essential condition of thrift that we should keep to legitimate occupations. There is no tariff in chance; its central idea is order—a series of causes and effects along the line of which forethought can look and make its calculations. Speculation makes the few rich and the many poor. Thrift divides the prizes of life to those who deserve them. If great fortunes are results of speculations, the average competencies have their foundation and permanence in thrifty ways. T. T. Munger.

20. According to the original, the “faithful man” is the man of integrity—truthful, sure. He will be great and rich in blessings. But he who makes haste to be rich is supposed to lose this integrity. Solomon does not say that he will miss the great blessings spoken of in the first clause, but he does more than to say it, he assumes that it cannot possibly be otherwise, and that every reader must see this. He will not be guiltless, and therefore being guilty, he will not be blessed. H. C.—Maketh haste to be rich. He that gets riches by fraud, violence, or oppression, instead of faithful and steady industry. Cupidity always tempts to fraud or oppression. M. S.—Rapacity is covetousness grasping; “making haste to be rich.” This is the true “wolf in the breast,” ever feeding, and yet ever craving; so ravenous that nothing is like it except death and the grave. It is a passion that compels every other feeling to its aid; the day seems too short for it; success is looked on as a reward and a spur; failure as a punishment for some relaxation of the passion; the wealth of others seems to reproach it; the poverty of others to warn it. Determined to gratify itself, it overlooks the morality of the means, despises alike the tardiness of industry and the scruples of integrity, and thinks only of the readiest way to success. J. H.

Riches that are gotten not by the exercise of superior faculties, not by patience, energy, enterprise and industry, but by gambling, by hazardous and lucky speculation, by sudden windfalls or by hasty adventures not unmingled with fraud, are only hurtful in their effect upon the character. They tend to uproot all principle; they throw a man afloat instead of fastening him. They overset or intoxicate the mind, not satisfy it. They kindle the passions, instead of disciplining or restraining them. Cheever.—The love of money can never exist alone. He who desires wealth for its own sake will be strongly disposed to injustice. His integrity will be assailed by constant temptation and always exposed to injury. The unjust balance and the short weight will be found in the possession of a covetous man. He will be ready to take advantage of the weakness or generosity of those who surround him. These habits of trifling with integrity will invariably harden the heart. If he be possessed of power, that power will be employed for bad purposes. If he occupy a station of trust, that trust will be abused. R. Hall.

20. As money stands for every commodity, so covetousness steps in front of every desire, acting now as the representative of the love of pleasure, now of the necessary wants of life, and now even of real or counterfeit benevolence. The Christian, as he looks abroad over life, beholds here the cause of shipwrecks of character, of damaged fortunes, of ruined hopes. It is a fire that consumes the soul with burning cares, it magnifies the world, and absorbs all the thoughts. To no man is eternity so far off as to the covetous man. The sober Christian, then, will not aim and bend the efforts of his life to be rich. He cannot do this, for the love of riches is worldly-mindedness condensed. T. D. W.

21. Compare 24:23 and 18:5. It is worse than merely “not good;” it is outrageously bad to have respect of persons, to be influenced by favoritism, to deny justice to the innocent, and to acquit the guilty. The proverb assumes that this evinces an utter want of principle. Such a man would sin for a morsel of bread, so cheap and facile a thing with him is his virtue. He would sell for less than a dish of pottage.

26. “Trusting to one’s own heart” is following its impulses, the lead of its passions, as opposed to following the wisdom of God. The first clause which, in form, only affirms such an one to be a fool, in fact assumes that this folly will ruin him; while walking in wisdom would insure his deliverance from such ruin. H. C.—Unbelief men are responsible for. Unbelief is criminal because it is a moral act—an act of the whole nature. Belief or unbelief is a test of a man’s whole spiritual condition, just because it is the whole being, affections, will, conscience, and all, as well as the understanding, which are concerned in it. A. M.

27. What we give to the poor we deliver and intrust in His hands, out of which no force can wring it, no craft can flich it; it is laid up in heaven, whither no thief can climb, and where no moth or rust do abide. In spite of all the fortune, of all the might, of all the malice in the world, the liberal man will ever be rich; for God’s providence is his estate, God’s wisdom and power are his defence, God’s love and favor are his reward, God’s Word is his assurance, who hath said that “He which giveth to the poor shall not lack;” no vicissitude therefore of things can surprise Him or find Him unfurnished, no disaster can impoverish Him, no adversity can overwhelm Him; He hath a certain reserve against all times and occasions; He that “deviseth liberal things, by liberal things shall He stand.” Barrow.

“Hiding the eyes” here is closing one’s own eyes so as not to see a suffering brother’s want and shutting the sympathies of the heart against such appeals. This man shall have many a curse. The great Father commits Himself to bless those who are with Him in loving care for the poor. (See 19:17 and 29:7.) H. C. —He that hides his eyes, that he may not see the miseries of the poor, nor read their petitions, lest his eye should affect his heart and extort some relief from him, he shall have many a curse, both from God and man. Woeful is the condition of that man who has the Word of God and the prayers of the poor against him. H.

We satisfy not our obligation to the bond and law of love by giving comfortable words. As that faith which is alone without works doth not justify us, so the pity which is alone without works doth not justify our faith. Such empty pity will go for little better than cruelty, and not to help will be interpreted oppression. Caryl.