11/22/2021 – Day 257 – Proverbs 23 & 24// Re: 24:17 – 18 – a biblical distinction between “private gloating” over a fallen enemy and “public” – an enemy that defied God and faced God’s justice directly as a result.
Our original reading of these two chapters was on 01/29/2020 and I noticed I hadn’t weighed in on the verses that really caught my attention.
Here is verses 17 and 18 of chapter 24: “Do not gloat when your enemy fails; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.” I personally prefer Gill’s commentary here over Matthew Henry’s in this case for Gill makes a distinction between private and public. He notes that in cases of Pharoah and Revelation where the Devil and the Anti-Christ are cast into the Lake of fire, these are examples where God directly dealt justice to the perpetrators. As opposed to when say I am gloating over the fall of someone that wronged me personally. The fall may not directly connected to God’s justice dealt for my personal wrong, sin that it was. It could still be future.
Thoughts? I need to share with you Gill’s exact wording (links below for both verses):
https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/proverbs-24-17.html
https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/proverbs-24-18.html
I submit that this is instructive for us generally because it demonstrates the principle: “Let scripture testify to scripture.” We have an apparent contradiction between these Proverbs verses on the one hand, and the Psalm 58:10 and the Revelation verses that Gill references on the other. So, we must dig a little deeper, even think through it comparing the contexts of the respective verses.
Many times I have seen where people take these instances face value only and try to conclude: “See, the Bible can’t be infallible because it contradicts itself.”
Soli Deo Gloria!
Love,
Jimmy