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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Proverbs 28:28 - 28:28
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The following proverb resembles the beginnings Pro 28:2, Pro 28:12. The proverbs Pro 28:28; Pro 29:1-3, form a beautiful square grasp, in which the first and third, and the second and fourth, correspond to one another.
28 When the godless rise up, men hide themselves;
And when they perish, the righteous increase.
Line first is a variation of 12b. Since they who hide themselves are merely called men, people, the meaning of יִרְבּוּ is probably not this, that the righteous then from all sides come out into the foreground (Hitzig), but that they prosper, multiply, and increase as do plants, when the worms, caterpillars, and the like are destroyed (Fleischer); Löwenstein glosses יִרְבּוּ by יגדלו, they become great = powerful, but that would be Elihu's style, Job 33:12, which is not in common use; the names of masters and of those in authority, רַב, רַבִּי, רַבָּן, רַבָּנוּת, are all derived from רָבַב, not from רָבָה. The increase is to be understood of the prosperous growth (to become great = to increase, as perhaps also Gen 21:10) of the congregation of the righteous, which gains in the overthrow of the godless an accession to its numbers; cf. Pro 29:2, and especially Pro 29:16.