Matthew Henry on Proverbs 12:3
Note, 1. Though men may advance themselves by sinful arts, they cannot by such arts settle and secure themselves; though they may get large estates they cannot get such as will abide: A man shall not be established by wickedness; it may set him in high places, but they are slippery places, Psa 73:18. That prosperity which is raised by sin is built on the sand, and so it will soon appear. 2. Though good men may have but little of the world, yet that little will last, and what is honestly got will wear well: The root of the righteous shall not be moved, though their branches may be shaken. Those that by faith are rooted in Christ are firmly fixed; in him their comfort and happiness are so root…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 12:3
Wickedness cannot give permanent prosperity.
root . . . not be moved--firm as a flourishing tree-- (Psa 1:3; Psa 15:5; Jer 17:8).
John Gill on Proverbs 12:3
A man shall not be established by wickedness,.... Not any man, though he may be established in his wickedness, so as not to be rooted out of it; yet he cannot be so established by it as not to be removed from a prosperous state and condition into an unhappy and distressed one; he may seem to be in a firm and settled state of prosperity, amidst all his wickedness; be like a green bay tree, spreading itself, and seemingly immovable, when on a sudden it is blown down and rooted up, and is no more: so Babylon will seem to be in a settled state of grandeur, ease, and rest, and say, "I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow"; when in one day, and in one hour, her destruction shall come upon her, Rev…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 12:3
3 A man does not stand by wickedness,
But the root of the righteous remains unmoved.
In רשׁע there lies the idea of want of inward stay (vid., at Psa 1:1); in a manner of thought and of conduct which has no stay in God and His law, there can be expected no external endurance, no solidity. The righteous, on the contrary, have their root in God; nothing can tear them from the ground in which they are rooted, they are as trees which no storm outroots. The very same thought is clothed in other words in Pro 10:25, and another statement regarding the root of the righteous is found at Pro 12:12.
