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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 24:29 - 24:29
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The following proverb is connected as to its subject with the foregoing: one ought not to do evil to his neighbour without necessity; even evil which has been done to one must not be requited with evil:
Say not, “As he hath done to me, so I do to him:
I requite the man according to his conduct.”
On the ground of public justice, the talio is certainly the nearest form of punishment, Lev 24:19.; but even here the Sinaitic law does not remain in the retortion of the injury according to its external form (it is in a certain manner practicable only with regard to injury done to the person and to property), but places in its stead an atonement measured and limited after a higher point of view. On pure moral grounds, the jus talionis (“as thou to me, so I to thee”) has certainly no validity. Here he to whom injustice is done ought to commit his case to God, Pro 20:22, and to oppose to evil, not evil but good; he ought not to set himself up as a judge, nor to act as one standing on a war-footing with his neighbour (Jdg 15:11); but to take God as his example, who treats the sinner, if only he seeks it, not in the way of justice, but of grace (Exo 34:6.). The expression 29b reminds of Pro 24:12. Instead of לְאָדָם, there is used here, where the speaker points to a definite person, the phrase לָאִישׁ. Jerome, the Venet., and Luther translate: to each one, as if the word were vocalized thus, לְאִישׁ (Ps. 62:13).