INTRODUCTION

Proverbs 24:10-20 continues, structurally speaking, in the same pattern as the 22:22-24:9. Instead of the two-line Proverbs we find elsewhere, these are small paragraphs, at least four lines long.

24:10-20 returns again and again to situations of distress, attack, battle, and the success of enemies. Verse 10 talks about the “day of distress,” and the following two verses are about intercepting someone who is being led to slaughter. Verse 16 against speaks of calamity, and verses 17-18 are about our attitude toward fallen enemies. Verses 19-20 return to the theme of 24:1, the problem of the success of the wicked and the temptation for the righteous to envy and seek to imitate the wicked.

It is possible that verse 1 and verses 19-20 are intended as a frame around a section. The section is perhaps too divided into ten subsections (if, for instance, we take verse 7 with verses 5-6, or verse 10 with verses 11-12). Perhaps we have another Decalog structure.

PROVERBS 24:10-12

These verses hang together, and if they don’t form a single Proverb, they at least are linked. They are, as it were, two sides to the same coin. On the one hand, verse 10 speaks of our own response to the “day of distress,” while verses 11-12 demand that we intervene to save those who are heading toward distress and death.

The verb for “slack” basically means “fall,” and the particular form here is used elsewhere to describe laziness, loss of courage, failing to meet one’s duty. The scenario in view is a time of trouble; the kind of trouble is unspecified, and could refer to military distress, the distress of Yahweh’s judgment falling, financial distress, family distress. Whatever the trouble, the Proverb warns against going slack or failing to act at the very time when firm action is necessary. The attitude seems to be one of resignation: “There’s nothing I can do; I’m going to huddle here in the corner and do nothing and hope that the distress passes.” Proverbs frequently points to the importance of timing, as does Ecclesiastes 3. There are times to back off, and to do nothing; but the day of distress is not such a time. Wisdom is knowing what to do when; it’s skill in dancing the dance of life.

The Proverb is fairly gentle. One who goes slack in the day of distress is not called wicked, a fool, an evil man. But the Proverb states the obvious: If you go slack in the day of distress, your strength is limited. (In Hebrew, the point is underscored with a pun; the word for distress is tzarah, while the word for “small” is tzar. In the Hebrew text, they are right next to each other – If you are slack in the day of distress, small your strength.) The point is that distress, trouble, hardship, and challenge are the real test of strength – both physical strength and strength of character. It’s easy to appear strong when everything is going well, but the real test comes when things start to fall apart.

The strength we are to show in the day of distress is not only a strength of self-preservation or self-protection. As verses 11-12 show, we are to show strength in rescuing others. As Toby said about Boaz last week, strength is evident in righteous action toward those who are in desperate need.

Who are the ones being led toward death, the ones staggering toward slaughter? There are several possibilities. In Proverbs, the fool is on his way to death, staggering down a road without seeing the pit and gapes around the next bend. So, delivering those heading to death means arresting the progress of fools – rebuking them, teaching them, turning them from their folly. On the other hand, those being led to death are the helpless victims of oppressors who are being marched to the Gulags (cf. Psalm 82:1-4). Remember that Proverbs is written to a prince, and this exhortation tells the prince to break the teeth of the oppressors and rescue the needy. Remember too that we are all princes, and therefore all required to intervene on behalf of those in danger of death.

Verse 11 is ultimately about the true Wisdom of God, Jesus. He didn’t stand back and do nothing when we were staggering toward death, when we were heading toward slaughter. Instead, he intervened and offered Himself in our places. He was taken away to death instead of us, and by His dying we are held back from death.

Verse 12 reinforces the exhortation with a warning about making excuses. If we don’t intervene to help, we can’t get away with pleading ignorance. God knows our real motivations and real reasons for refusing to deliver those heading to death. He will weigh our hearts and will examine our souls. Verse 12 implies that knowledge is a duty. We want to protest, “But sometimes we really don’t know,” and the answer of Proverbs seems to be, “You should know.” Remember, again, that this is written to princes, who are responsible for the protection of their people. Remember, again, that we are all princes, all responsible for the protection of our brothers and sisters.

He will render to us according to our works, and one of the works he expects is the work of deliverance of the dying. We will someday stand before the throne and be asked whether we fed Jesus, clothed Jesus, visited Jesus, delivered Jesus when He was staggering toward death – for if we do this to the least, we do it to Jesus.

PROVERBS 24:13-14

Is Solomon giving dietary advice? Eat honey? The point is less about diet than about pleasure; honey is good because it is sweet to the taste. At the very least, we can say that Solomon is exhorting the prince to enjoy the good, very good, things that God has produced.

Honey is also associated with the land throughout the Old Testament. Canaan is a land flowing with milk and honey, and when Samson kills the lion and then eats honey from it, it’s a symbol of Samson’s victory over the Philistines and the restoration of a honey-filled land. Enjoying the sweetness of honey means, more broadly, enjoying the goodness of the land, of the abundant inheritance that God provides. And, since Solomon is writing to a prince, he is also talking about royal responsibilities. A king is both a deliverer and avenger, and the chief of the festivals. He breaks the teeth of the oppressor, and eats honey from the lion.

But the thrust of the Proverb is to speak of wisdom. The Bible frequently associates the sweetness of honey with the word and wisdom that comes from God (Psalm 19:10; 119:103; Proverbs 16:24; Ezekiel 3:3; Revelation 10:9-10). The harlot in Proverbs 5 :3 speaks honeyed words, though her words lead to bitter death, but the bride’s lips truly are sweet as honey – not only because of the pleasure of her kisses but because of the sweetness of the words that come from her mouth (Song 4:11). The upshot of this symbolism is that we should desire wisdom and the word of God the way children desire candy; we should desire wisdom the way a young man desires the lips of his best girl. It also tells us something about what the reception of God’s words is like – it is good and sweet. Prophets sometimes taste the word as honey but the word becomes bitter in the stomach; that’s not because of a problem with the word, but because the good and sweet word of God is sometimes a word of rebuke. Still, sweet are the words of a friend.

Wisdom creates a future, a “latter end” (v. 14). When there is wisdom, there is hope, and that hope will not be destroyed, suffering the curse of the covenant in being “cut off.” There is an “afterwards” for those who act with wisdom, ultimately an eternal “afterwards.” This, it seems, connects back to the honey-land connection, for the land is Israel’s inheritance, the assurance of their “afterward.” Jesus, and His body, form our hold land, the land flowing with the honey of wisdom, the land in which there is hope, in which there is an “afterwards.”

PROVERBS 24:15-16

The Proverbs rarely address the wicked directly, but Solomon does here. He is writing mainly to his son, but, interestingly, anticipates the possibility that the son may be wicked. The warning to the wicked is a warning not to plot against the righteous, not to set up a siege against his house. The terminology is military – “lie in wait” suggests a siege, and “destroy” is used of military actions against cities and countryside (cf. Psalm 137:8).

The verse has a rough chiastic structure:

O wicked man

Dwelling of the righteous

Resting place

Righteous falls and rises

Wicked stumble

In the verse’s structure, the wicked surround the righteous, just as they do in the content of the verse. But the righteous will not be destroyed on that account. He has a secure resting place in the center, even when the wicked press in on him from front and back.

More specifically, Solomon warns the wicked man not to plot against the “dwelling” and the “resting place” of the righteous. The word for “dwelling” can be a pasture or a human house, but is also used of God’s habitation (Exodus 15:13), suggesting an analogy between the house of the righteous and the house of Yahweh, the pasture of Yahweh in which His sheep dwell and a man’s own pasture. Yahweh’s house is a sacred space, a place that He claims for Himself, and only authorized personnel are permitted to draw near. Priests and Levites are stationed as guards to prevent unauthorized access. The Proverb, like some of the laws of the Torah, suggest a kind of “sanctity” of a man’s house as well. The house of the righteous is inviolable as is the house of the Righteous God. God defends His house, and a righteous man defends his, relying ultimately on the Lord’s protection. Jesus the Righteous One defends His house, the church, against all assaults.

Verse 16 gives the reason for the warning. The wicked should beware of attacking the righteous because the righteous always springs up from his falls. The verb “fall” is the same verb as in 24:10, where it mean “go slack” or “lose heart” or “become weak,” and here too it refers to a righteous man failing to stand up to pressure and difficulty. Even if he becomes weak and falters, though, he will never remain down for long. Yahweh will raise Him from the dust.

This verse has profound implications for our understanding of Jesus’ resurrection and of our own justification. This goes back to the first righteous man in Scripture – Noah (whose name is related to the word for “dwelling”). Noah is identified as a “righteous man,” and that means he will be raised up from the ground, delivered in the midst of the flood. To be a righteous man is to be a man marked out for new life. The righteous man is the one who is raised up; being raised from a fall is a sign that God regards someone as righteous. So Jesus was raised up as a demonstration that He was the Just One; He was raised “for our justification” (Romans 4:25). Our justification has the same meaning. God counts us as just in Christ, and that means He marks us out ahead of time as those who are going to fall and rise again, ultimately to rise to everlasting life on the last day.

The wicked, however, don’t rise. They stumble in the time of calamity, and are crushed. “Evil” overtakes them. The word for wicked here is sometimes used in the sense of “guilty” – it is the word Abraham uses when praying for Sodom. Here again we get an insight into the dynamics of justification; if the justified are marked for rising, the wicked, the guilty, those who are condemned, are marked for stumbling.

PROVERBS 24:17-18

This Proverb warns against gloating over the fall of our enemy, and warns that Yahweh Himself is displeased with such gloating. He might decide to let the enemy off easy if he sees us gloating.

Problem is, we see a lot of gloating in the Bible. The righteous bathes his feet in the blood of the wicked (Psalm 58) and the loudest shout of praise from the saints in Revelation comes after the fall of the harlot, as they sing something very like a taunt songs. Taunt songs are fairly common in the prophets, and in many cases they don’t seem to be unrighteous. Is Solomon contradicting these passages?

One possibility is that we distinguish enemies and enemies. We have personal enemies who use underhanded tactics to steal business from us, or who spread rumors about us. And Israel, and the church, have national enemies that can, rightly, be identified as enemies of Yahweh. The passages where the righteous rejoice in the destruction of enemies are all about the destruction of Yahweh’s enemies, while the passages that warn against such gloating are talking about personal enemies.

This is not entirely satisfying, but it’s the best I can do.