Matthew Henry on Proverbs 24:17-18
Here, 1. The pleasure we are apt to take in the troubles of an enemy is forbidden us. If any have done us an ill turn, or if we bear them ill-will only because they stand in our light or in our way, when any damage comes to them (suppose they fall), or any danger (suppose they stumble), our corrupt hearts are too apt to conceive a secret delight and satisfaction in it - Aha! so would we have it; they are entangled; the wilderness has shut them in - or, as Tyrus said concerning Jerusalem (Eze 26:2) I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste. "Men hope in the ruin of their enemies or rivals to wreak their revenge or to find their account; but be not thou so inhuman; rejoice not when the wor…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 24:17
Yet let none rejoice over the fate of evildoers, lest God punish their wrong spirit by relieving the sufferer (compare Pro 17:5; Job 31:29).
John Gill on Proverbs 24:18
Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him,.... Who sees all things, not only external actions, but the heart, and the inward motions of it; and though men may hide the pleasure they feel at the misery of an enemy from others, they cannot hide it from the Lord; nor is this said by way of doubt, but as a certain thing; and which the Lord not barely sees, but takes notice of, and to such a degree as to resent it, and show his displeasure at it by taking the following step;
and he turn away his wrath from him; remove the effects of it, raise him out of his fallen and distressed condition, and restore him to his former prosperous one; and not only so, but turn it upon thee, as Gersom supplies t…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 24:17-18
Warning against a vindictive disposition, and joy over its satisfaction.
17 At the fall of thine enemy rejoice not,
And at his overthrow let not thine heart be glad;
18 That Jahve see it not, and it be displeasing to Him,
And He turns away His anger from Him.
The Chethı̂b, which in itself, as the plur. of category, אויביך, might be tolerable, has 17b against it: with right, all interpreters adhere to the Kerı̂ אויבך (with i from ē in doubled close syllable, as in the like Kerı̂, Sa1 24:5). וּבבּשׁלו, for וּבהכּשׁלו, is the syncope usual in the inf. Niph. and Hiph., which in Niph. occurs only once with the initial guttural (as בּעטף) or half guttural (לראות). רעו is not adj. here as at Sa1 2…
