Proverbs 16:4

The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
LORD	יְ֭הוָה Yah.weh	H3068	Jehovah · proper noun, a title
made	פָּעַ֣ל pa.'Al	H6466	to do or make (systematically and habitually) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
himself	לַֽמַּעֲנֵ֑הוּ la.ma.'a.Ne.hu	H4617	a reply (favorable or contradictory) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
wicked	רָ֝שָׁ֗ע ra.Sha'	H7563	morally wrong · noun, common masculine singular absolute
day	לְי֣וֹם le.Yom	H3117	a day (as the warm hours) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
evil	רָעָֽה ra.'Ah	H7451	bad or (as noun) evil (natural or moral) · noun, common feminine singular absolute

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Isaiah 43:21 This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.
Romans 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruct…
2 Peter 2:9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
Isaiah 43:7 Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.
1 Peter 2:8 And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appoint…
Revelation 4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were cre…
Job 21:30 That the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.
2 Peter 2:3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their d…

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Proverbs 16:4

Note, 1. That God is the first cause. He is the former of all things and all persons, the fountain of being; he gave every creature the being it has and appointed it its place. Even the wicked are his creatures, though they are rebels; he gave them those powers with which they fight against him, which aggravates their wickedness, that they will not let him that made them rule them, and therefore, though he made them, he will not save them. 2. That God is the last end. All is of him and from him, and therefore all is to him and for him. He made all according to his will and for his praise; he designed to serve his own purposes by all his creatures, and he will not fail of his designs; all are…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 16:4

for himself--"for its answer," or "purpose," that is, according to God's plan; the wicked are for the day of evil (Psa 49:5; Jer 17:18); sinning and suffering answer to each other, are indissolubly united.

John Gill on Proverbs 16:4

The Lord hath made all things for himself,.... This is true of the Lord with respect to the creation of all things by him. All things are made by him, the heaven, earth, and sea; and all that are in them, angels, men, beasts, birds, fishes, and all creatures: and these are made for himself, and not another; not for the pure or good men, as Aben Ezra, though all things are for the elect's sake; but for God himself, besides whom there was no other before the creation, nor is there any other God but him, who is the first cause and last end of all things: nor were those all things made for him, through any want he had of them, being God all sufficient and blessed for evermore, but to show his gr…

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Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 16:4

4 Jahve hath made everything for its contemplated end; And also the wicked for the day of evil. Everywhere else מענה means answer (Venet. πρὸς ἀπόκρισιν αὐτοῦ), which is not suitable here, especially with the absoluteness of the כּל; the Syr. and Targ. translate, obedientibus ei, which the words do not warrant; but also propter semet ipsum (Jerome, Theodotion, Luther) give to 4b no right parallelism, and, besides, would demand למענו or למענהוּ. The punctuation למּענהוּ, which is an anomaly (cf. כּגּברתּהּ, Isa 24:2, and בּערינוּ, Ezr 10:14), shows (Ewald) that here we have, not the prepositional למען, but ל with the subst. מענה, which in derivation and meaning is one with the form מעז a…

The Church Fathers

The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, etc. The Lord had no other cause for creating the invisible or visible creature than His will, that He might show His goodness to the rational creature, whom He would make eternally blessed: and also the one who of his own will abandoned the good of his condition, that is, the devil and his followers, He justly condemned with severity.
— Bede, Commentary on Proverbs

Only God does what is good, acting from love of goodness for its own sake and not moved by fear or hope of reward. As Solomon says, "The Lord has done all things for his own sake." For the sake of his own goodness he bestows an abundance of goodness upon the worthy and the unworthy, because he can neither be wearied by wrongdoing nor provoked to painful emotion by human wickedness. He always remains what he is, perfect in goodness and unchanging in nature.
— John Cassian, CONFERENCE 11:6

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Christ Is God · As Jehovah, for whose glory all things were created — As Jehovah, for whose glory all things were created
Creation · Effected: For God’s pleasure — Effected: For God’s pleasure
Design · In nature, evi — In nature, evi
Man · General references — General references
Predestination · 19:25; — 19:25;

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Proverbs 16:4

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Proverbs 16:4

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 16:4

John Gill on Proverbs 16:4

Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 16:4

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Proverbs 16:4

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Proverbs 16:4

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 16:4

John Gill on Proverbs 16:4

Keil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 16:4

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Proverbs 16:4

Rashi on Proverbs 16:4