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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 16:4 - 16:4
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4 Jahve hath made everything for its contemplated end;
And also the wicked for the day of evil.
Everywhere else מַֽעֲנֶה means answer (Venet. πρὸς ἀπόκρισιν αὐτοῦ), which is not suitable here, especially with the absoluteness of the כֹּל; the Syr. and Targ. translate, obedientibus ei, which the words do not warrant; but also propter semet ipsum (Jerome, Theodotion, Luther) give to 4b no right parallelism, and, besides, would demand לְמַֽעֲנוֹ or לְמַֽעֲנֵהוּ. The punctuation לַמַּֽעֲנִהוּ, which is an anomaly (cf. כַּגְּבִרְתָּהּ, Isa 24:2, and בֶּעָרֵינוּ, Ezr 10:14), shows (Ewald) that here we have, not the prepositional לְמַעַן, but ל with the subst. מַֽעֲנֶה, which in derivation and meaning is one with the form מַעַז abbreviated from it (cf. מַעַל, מַעַר), similar in meaning to the Arab. ma'anyn, aim, intention, object, and end, and mind, from 'atay, to place opposite to oneself a matter, to make it the object of effort. Hitzig prefers לְמַֽעֲנֶה, but why not rather לְמַֽעֲנֵהוּ, for the proverb is not intended to express that all that God has made serve a purpose (by which one is reminded of the arguments for the existence of God from final causes, which are often prosecuted too far), but that all is made by God for its purpose, i.e., a purpose premeditated by Him, that the world of things and of events stands under the law of a plan, which has in God its ground and its end, and that also the wickedness of free agents is comprehended in this plan, and made subordinate to it. God has not indeed made the wicked as such, but He has made the being which is capable of wickedness, and which has decided for it, viz., in view of the “day of adversity” (Ecc 7:14), which God will cause to come upon him, thus making His holiness manifest in the merited punishment, and thus also making wickedness the means of manifesting His glory. It is the same thought which is expressed in Exo 9:16 with reference to Pharaoh. A praedestinatio ad malum, and that in the supralapsarian sense, cannot be here taught, for this horrible dogma (horribile quidem decretrum, fateor, says Calvin himself) makes God the author of evil, and a ruler according to His sovereign caprice, and thus destroys all pure conceptions of God. What Paul, Rom 9, with reference to Exo 9:16, wishes to say is this, that it was not Pharaoh's conduct that determined the will of God, but that the will of God is always the antecedens: nothing happens to God through the obstinacy and rebellion of man which determines Him to an action not already embraced in the eternal plan, but also such an one must against his will be subservient to the display of God's glory. The apostle adds Rom 9:22, and shows that he recognised the factor of human self-determination, but also as one comprehended in God's plan. The free actions of men create no situation by which God would be surprised and compelled to something which was not originally intended by Himself. That is what the above proverb says: the wicked also has his place in God's order of the world. Whoever frustrates the designs of grace must serve God in this, ἐνδείζασθαι τὴν ὀργὴν καὶ γνωρίσαι τὸ δυνατὸν αὐτοῦ (Rom 9:22).