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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 20:22 - 20:22
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22 Say not: I will avenge the evil;
Hope in Jahve, so will He help thee.
Men ought always to act toward their neighbours according to the law of love, and not according to the jus talionis, Pro 24:29; they ought not only, by requiting good with evil (Pro 16:13; Psa 7:5, Psa 35:12), not to transgress this law of requital, but they ought to surpass it, by also recompensing not evil with evil (vid., regarding שִׁלֵּם, and synon. to Pro 17:13); and that is what the proverb means, for 22b supposes injustice suffered, which might stir up a spirit of revenge. It does not, however, say that men ought to commit the taking of vengeance to God; but, in the sense of Rom 12:17-19; 1Pe 3:9, that, renouncing all dependence on self, they ought to commit their deliverance out of the distress into which they have fallen, and their vindication, into the hands of God; for the promise is not that He will avenge them, but that He will help them. The jussive וישׁע (write וְיֹשַֽׁע, according to Metheg-setzung, §42, with Gaja as העמדה, with the ע to secure distinct utterance to the final guttural) states as a consequence, like, e.g., 2Ki 5:10, what will then happen (Jerome, Luther, Hitzig) if one lets God rule (Gesen. §128, 2c); equally possible, syntactically, is the rendering: that He may help thee (lxx, Ewald); but, regarded as a promise, the words are more in accordance with the spirit of the proverb, and they round it off more expressively.