Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 24:19 - 24:19

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 24:19 - 24:19


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Warning against envying the godless for their external prosperity:

19 Be not enraged on account of evil-doers,

Envy not the godless;

20 For the wicked men shall have no future,

The light of the godless is extinguished.

Ver. 19 is a variation of Psa 37:1; cf. also Pro 3:21 (where with בכל־דרכיו following the traditional תבחר is more appropriate than תתחר, which Hupfeld would here insert). תִּתְחַר is fut. apoc. of הִתְחָרָה, to be heated (to be indignant), distinguished from the Tiphel תַּֽחֲרָה, to be jealous. The ground and occasion of being enraged, and on the other side, of jealousy or envy, is the prosperity of the godless, Psa 73:3; cf. Jer 12:1. This anger at the apparently unrighteous division of fortune, this jealousy at the success in which the godless rejoice, rest on short-sightedness, which regards the present, and looks not on to the end. אַֽחֲרִית, merely as in the expression 'ישׁ אח, 14b (cf. Psa 37:37), always denotes the happy, glorious issue indemnifying for past sufferings. Such an issue the wicked man has not; his light burns brightly on this side, but one day it is extinguished. In 20b is repeated Pro 13:9; cf. Pro 20:20.