Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 11:31 - 11:31
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
31 Lo, the righteous findeth on earth his reward;
How much more the godless and the sinner!
The particles אַף כִּי signify properly, interrogatively: Shall it yet be said that...; it corresponds to the German “geschweige denn” [nedum] (Fl.). הֵן is already in bibl. Hebr. in the way of becoming a conditional particle; it opens, as here, the antecedent of a gradatio a minori ad majus introduced by אף כי, Job 15:15., Pro 25:5., cf. הן (הנה) with וְאֵיךְ following, Gen 44:8; 2Sa 12:18. 2Sa 13:13 presents itself as the nearest parallel to שֻׁלַּם, where it means, to be rewarded. It is a vocabulum anceps, and denotes full requital, i.e., according to the reference, either righteous reward or righteous punishment. If 30a is understood of reward, and 30b of punishment, then the force of the argument in the conclusion consists in this, that the righteous can put forth no claim to a recompense, because his well-doing is never so perfect as not to be mingled with sin (Ecc 7:20; Psa 143:2); while, on the contrary, the repression of the wicked, who, as רָשָׁע as to his intention, and חוֹטֵא as to his conduct, actually denies his dependence on God, is demanded by divine holiness. But the conclusion is not stringent, since in the relation of God to the righteous His dispensation of grace and faithfulness to promises also come into view, and thus in both cases יְשֻׁלָּם appears to require the same interpretation: if the righteous does not remain unrevenged, so much more shall not the godless and the sinner remain..., or how much less shall the godless and the sinner remain so. Thus the Graec. Venet., Θεῷ ὁ δίκαιος ἐν τῇ γῇ ἀποτιθήσεται; thus also Luther, and among the moderns Löwenstein and Elster. Of the proverb so understood the lxx version, εἰ ὁ μὲν δίκαιος μόλις (μόγις) σώζεται, ὁ ἀσεβὴς καὶ ἁμαρτωλὸς ποῦ φανεῖται (cf. 1Pe 4:18) may be a free translation, for in the ישׁלם there certainty lies, according to the sense, a כִּמְעַט יִוָּשֵׁעַ. Also ישׁלם has the principal tone, not בארץ. The thought: even on this side (on earth), lies beyond the sphere of the O.T. consciousness. The earth is here the world of man.