grass (or any tender shoot) · noun, common masculine 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
Hosea 14:5 I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.
Proverbs 16:14-15 The wrath of a king is as messengers of death: but a wise man will pacify it.
Proverbs 20:2 The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: whoso provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul.
Luke 12:4-5 And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.
Proverbs 28:15 As a roaring lion, and a ranging bear; so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.
Esther 7:8 Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was.…
Psalms 133:3 As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for eve…
Ecclesiastes 8:4 Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Proverbs 19:12
This is to the same purport with what we had Pro 16:14, Pro 16:15, and the design of it is, 1. To make kings wise and considerate in dispensing their frowns and smiles. They are not like those of common persons; their frowns are very terrible and their smiles very comfortable, and therefore it concerns them to be very careful that they never frighten a good man from doing well with their frowns, nor ever give countenance to a wicked man in doing ill with their smiles, for then they abuse their influence, Rom 13:3. 2. To make subjects faithful and dutiful to their princes. Let them be restrained from all disloyalty by the consideration of the dreadful consequence of having the government agai…
(Compare Pro 16:14-15; Pro 20:2). A motive to submission to lawful authority.
John Gill on Proverbs 19:12
The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion,.... Which is very terrible when hungry, and is after its prey, and has got it. Kings, especially tyrannical ones, are compared to lions; as Nebuchadnezzar by Jeremiah, Jeremiah 4:17; and Nero by the Apostle Paul, 2 Timothy 4:7; and the rage of such is very dreadful, as Ahasuerus's was to Haman. Jarchi interprets the king, of the holy blessed God. It may be applied to Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah; who is said to cry with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth; and whose wrath is terrible to wicked men, and even to the kings of the earth, Revelation 5:5;
but his favour is as dew upon the grass; which refreshes and revives it, and cau…
12 A murmuring as of a lion is the wrath of the king,
And as dew on plants is his favour.
Line 1 is a variation of Pro 20:2; line 2a of Pro 16:15. זעף is not the being irritated against another, but generally ill-humour, fretfulness, bad humour; the murmuring or growling in which this state of mind expresses itself is compared to that of a lion which, growling, prepares and sets itself to fall upon its prey (vid., Isa 5:29, cf. Amo 3:4). Opposed to the זעף stands the beneficial effect of the רצון, i.e., of the pleasure, the delight, the satisfaction, the disposition which shows kindness (lxx τὸ ἱλαρὸν αὐτοῦ). In the former case all are afraid; in the latter, everything lives, as when th…
The Church Fathers
"As the roaring of a lion, so is the anger of a king," etc. It speaks of God the King, who in judgment is both cheerful and gentle to the just, but will appear terrible to the unjust. "A foolish son is a father's grief." God, who is always impassible and placid in His nature, is nevertheless said to grieve in our manner when He sees that men, whom He created to believe in and praise Him, rather serve a malignant enemy than Himself. Hence Moses also says of Him, "He repented that He had made man on earth." And being inwardly touched with sorrow of heart, He said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth" (Gen 6:7). "And a contentious woman is like a continuous dripping." Just as roofs that continuously drip indeed receive rain from heaven, yet do not distribute it for any useful purpose, but rather cause annoyance to those living below; so too, indeed, the Church of heretics, improperly interpreting and arguing against Catholics, receives gifts of heavenly words, not for the salvation of souls, but for the misuse of its wickedness. For dripping roofs indeed receive pure drops of rain, but render those beneath them filthy, and a heretic, though he hears the purest words of the heavenly oracle with his body, yet when he touches these with a defiled heart, he administers them mingled with filth to his audience. "Laziness induces sleep." He is called lazy, who, though correctly perceiving, is almost awake, yet is slothful by doing nothing. But laziness induces sleep, because even the vigilance of correct perception is lost for a while, whenever one ceases from the pursuit of good deeds. And rightly it is added: "And a loose soul shall hunger." For since it does not direct itself by striving towards higher things, it expands downward through neglect towards desires. And while it is not constrained by the vigor of diligent study, it is wounded by the craving for the lowest desires, so that by rejecting restraint through discipline, it scatters itself in hunger through the desires of pleasures.
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
Anger · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Citizens · WICKED AND TREA — WICKED AND TREA
Grass · Refreshed by rain and dew — Refreshed by rain and dew
Kings · Folly of resisting — Folly of resisting
Lion · .Of a ruler’s anger — .Of a ruler’s anger
Lion, The · Illustrative: (Roaring of,) of a king’s wrath — Illustrative: (Roaring of,) of a king’s wrath
Rulers · CHARACTER AND QUALIFI — CHARACTER AND QUALIFI
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).
