Matthew Henry on Proverbs 29:10
Note, 1. Bad men hate their best friends: The blood-thirsty, all the seed of the old serpent, who was a murderer from the beginning, all that inherit his enmity against the seed of the woman, hate the upright; they seek the ruin of good men because they condemn the wicked world and witness against it. Christ told his disciples that they should be hated of all men. Bloody men do especially hate upright magistrates, who would restrain and reform them, and put the laws in execution against them, and so really do them a kindness. 2. Good men love their worst enemies: The just, whom the bloody men hate, seek their soul, pray for their conversion, and would gladly do any thing for their salvation.…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Proverbs 29:10
bloodthirsty--(Compare Margin), murderers (Psa 5:6; Psa 26:9).
hate, &c.-- (Pro 1:11; Gen 3:4).
seek . . . soul--that is, to preserve it.
John Gill on Proverbs 29:10
The bloodthirsty hate the upright,.... Cain did Abel; and as the wicked world hate all good men, and persecute them, even unto death;
but the just must seek his soul; either the soul of the bloodthirsty, and that either the good of their souls; seek their spiritual welfare, and pray for it, even though they are so cruel and inhuman: or just magistrates will seek after such persons, to punish them for shedding the blood of the upright. Or else the meaning is, that just persons seek the soul of the upright, and make inquisition for the blood of such, to punish for it; which comes to the same sense, as Aben Ezra observes: or rather, such seek to defend and preserve the soul or life of upright…
Read the whole note in the consoleKeil & Delitzsch on Proverbs 29:10
We now group together Pro 29:10-14. Of these, Pro 29:10 and Pro 29:11 are alike in respect of the tense used; Pro 29:12-14 have in common the pronoun pointing back to the first member.
10 Men of blood hate the guiltless
And the upright; they attempt the life of such
The nearest lying translation of the second line would certainly be: the upright seek his soul (that of the guiltless). In accordance with the contrasted ישׂנאו, the Aram. understand the seeking of earnest benevolent seeking, but disregarding the נפשׁ in לנפשׁו;
(Note: The Targum translates תם, guiltlessness, and the Venet. (μισοῦσι) γνῶσιν, turning to Pro 1:22.)
Symmachus (ἐπιζητήσουσι), Jerome (quaerunt), and Luther thus al…
