Süleyman'ın Özdeyişleri 11:8 Yorum

As religion towards God is a branch of universal righteousness (he is not an honest man that is not devout), so righteousness towards men is a branch of true religion, for he is not a godly man that is not honest, nor can he expect that his devotion should be accepted; for, 1. Nothing is more offensive to God than deceit in commerce. A false balance is here put for all manner of unjust and fraudulent practices in dealing with any person, which are all an abomination to the Lord, and render those abominable to him that allow themselves in the use of such accursed arts of thriving. It is an affront to justice, which God is the patron of, as well as a wrong to our neighbour, whom God is the protector of. Men make light of such frauds, and think there is no sin in that which there is money to be got by, and, while it passes undiscovered, they cannot blame themselves for it; a blot is no blot till it is hit, Hos 12:7, Hos 12:8. But they are not the less an abomination to God, who will be the avenger of those that are defrauded by their brethren. 2. Nothing is more pleasing to God than fair and honest dealing, nor more necessary to make us and our devotions acceptable to him: A just weight is his delight. He himself goes by a just weight, and holds the scale of judgment with an even hand, and therefore is pleased with those that are herein followers of him. A balance cheats, under pretence of doing right most exactly, and therefore is the greater abomination to God.

As always in death, so sometimes in life, the righteous are remarkably favoured and the wicked crossed. 1. Good people are helped out of the distresses which they thought themselves lost in, and their feet are set in a large room, Psa 66:12; Psa 34:19. God has found out a way to deliver his people even when they have despaired and their enemies have triumphed, as if the wilderness had shut them in. 2. The wicked have fallen into the distresses which they thought themselves far from, nay, which they had been instrumental to bring the righteous into, so that they seem to come in their stead, as a ransom for the just. Mordecai is saved from the gallows, Daniel from the lion's den, and Peter from the prison; and their persecutors come in their stead. The Israelites are delivered out of the Red Sea and the Egyptians drowned in it. So precious are the saints in God's eye that he gives men for them, Isa 43:3, Isa 43:4.

A false balance is abomination to the Lord,.... Under which are included all false weights and measures, and all fraudulent practices in commerce and dealing; which are forbidden by the Lord, and are abominable to him, as being injurious to the estates and properties of men: and more especially must be abominable in professors of religion, as being contrary to the grace of God; for though there may be common honesty where there is not the grace of God, yet there cannot be the true grace of God where there is not honesty; for the grace of God teaches to deny all such worldly lusts; but a just weight is his delight; or a "perfect stone" (c); the ancient practice being to make use of stones for weights; Now to give just weight, and also just measure, and to do justly in all civil dealings with men, is what God requires, and is well pleasing in his sight (d); see Lev 19:35. This may be understood of balances and weights in religious affairs; the balance of the sanctuary is the word of God, with which all doctrines are to be weighed, and, if found wanting, they are to be rejected; this is agreeable to the will of God: false balances are abominable to him; such as carnal reason, vain philosophy, and the traditions of men, used by antichrist and his followers; the harlot, described in some preceding chapters, opposed to Wisdom or Christ, who directs to the search of the Scriptures, and the use of them to try doctrines by, Joh 5:39; see Act 17:11. (c) "lapsis perfectus", Montanus, Gejerus. (d) , &c. Phocylid. Poem. Admon. v. 12, 13.

The righteous is delivered out of trouble,.... One after another he comes into, if not in this life, yet at death; which is to him a perfect deliverance out of all tribulation; see Rev 7:14; or when the wicked die, as in Pro 11:7, then the righteous are delivered from the trouble they gave them, or designed to give them; though it seems rather to design deliverance from trouble in the first sense, since it follows, and the wicked cometh in his stead; as Haman did in the room of Mordecai, and was hanged upon the gallows the other was delivered from, and he had prepared for him, Est 7:10; and as Daniel was delivered from the lion's den, and his enemies thrown into it, Dan 6:24; and as in the latter day the righteous will be delivered from all their persecutors, and antichrist will be destroyed with the breath of Christ's mouth, and the brightness of his coming; and then they that destroyed the earth shall be destroyed themselves, Rev 11:18.

"The righteous is delivered out of trouble," etc. Any martyr freed from the distress of suffering after death will be entrusted to punishment on account of his cause to the persecutor who caused him distress. James was crowned with martyrdom, Peter was saved from prison; and Herod, who persecuted them, visibly consumed by worms, was invisibly snatched where his worm does not die and his fire is not quenched.

(Pro. 11:1-31) (Compare Margin). The Hebrews used stones for weights. just--complete in measure.

Perhaps the trouble prepared by the wicked, and which he inherits (compare Pro 11:6).

8 The righteous is delivered from trouble, And the godless comes in his stead. The succession of the tenses gives the same meaning as when, periodizing, we say: while the one is delivered, the other, on the contrary, falls before the same danger. נחלץ (vid., under Isa 58:11) followed by the historical tense, the expression of the principal fact, is the perfect. The statement here made clothes itself after the manner of a parable in the form of history. It is true there are not wanting experiences of an opposite kind (from that here stated), because divine justice manifests itself in this world only as a prelude, but not perfectly and finally; but the poet considers this, that as a rule destruction falls upon the godless, which the righteous with the help of God escapes; and this he realizes as a moral motive. In itself תּחתּיו may also have only the meaning of the exchange of places, but the lxx translate αντ ̓ αὐτοῦ, and thus in the sense of representation the proverb appears to be understood in connection with Pro 21:18 (cf. the prophetico-historical application, Isa 43:4). The idea of atonement has, however, no application here, for the essence of atonement consists in the offering up of an innocent one in the room of the guilty, and its force lies in the offering up of self; the meaning is only, that if the divinely-ordained linking together of cause and effect in the realms of nature and of history brings with it evil, this brings to the godless destruction, while it opens the way of deliverance for the righteous, so that the godless becomes for the righteous the כּפר, or, as we might say in a figure of similar import, the lightning conductor.