Proverbs 11:8

Pro 11:8 The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead.

Ver. 8. And the wicked cometh in his stead.] Thus it befell Haman, and Daniel’s enemies, and those inhuman Edomites, {Lam 4:21} and Herod with his hacksters. {Act 12:1-4; Act 12:21-23} It is "a righteous thing with God," {2Th 1:6-7} though to men it seem an incredible paradox, and a news by far more admirably [wonderfull] than acceptable, that there should be such a transmutation of conditions on both sides, to contraries. But thus it happens frequently. John Martin of Briqueras, a mile from Angrogne, in France, vaunted everywhere that he would slit the minister’s nose of Angrogne. But, behold! himself was shortly after assaulted by a wolf, which bit off his nose, so that he died mad from it. {a}

{a} Acts and Mon., fol. 871.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Pro_11:8

The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead.

Trouble in its relation to the righteous and the wicked

All men have their troubles. The relation of the good and the bed to trouble is strikingly different.

I. The righteous are going out of trouble. The troubles of the righteous arise from physical infirmities, mental difficulties, secular anxieties, moral imperfections, social dishonesties, falsehoods, end bereavements. But the fact is, that they are being delivered out of these troubles.

1. Partially, they are being delivered out of trouble now.

2. Completely, they will be delivered out of all trouble at death.

II. The wicked are going into trouble. They are going deeper into trouble every step they take. They are forging thunderbolts and nursing storms. The trouble they are going into is unmitigated. (D. Thomas, D.D.)

Retributive justice

Thus do these two classes change places in the dispensations of God. The same Providence often marks Divine faithfulness and retributive justice. The Israelites were delivered out of the trouble of the Red Sea; the Egyptians came in their stead. Mordecai was delivered from the gallows; Haman was hanged upon it. The noble confessors in Babylon were saved from the fire; their executioners were slain by it. Daniel was preserved from the lions; his accusers were devoured by them. Peter was snatched from death; his jailors and persecutors were condemned. Thus precious in the sight of the Lord is the life, no less than the death, of his saints. To what source but his own free and sovereign love can we trace this special estimation? (C. Bridges.)

The wicked cometh in his stead

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came unhurt out of the burning fiery furnace; whilst the men who cast them in were slain by the fierceness of the heat (Dan_3:22-27.) Daniel was taken up alive and uninjured out of the lions den; whilst the men who had accused him were cast into the same den, and the lions, which had not touched Daniel, brake all their bones in pieces before they reached the bottom of the den (Dan_6:23-24).

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro_11:8

THE WICKED COMING IN THE STEAD OF THE RIGHTEOUS

I. This proverb must be fulfilled from the nature of the case. If a vessel is being steered straight for the rocks nothing can prevent her from being dashed upon them except a change of course. Nothing else can avert the catastrophe, unless a supernatural power removes the rock out of the way. This last cannot be; the first alternative rests with the will of the commander. If another vessel is going in an opposite direction she must as necessarily escape the doom to which the other is hastening. There is nothing of fate about their different destinies, they are the outcome of a choice of opposite courses. So with the opposite ends of the righteous and the wicked. Deliverance for the first, an inheritance of trouble for the latter, are the result of no arbitrary fate but the outcome of their pursuing opposite courses. Unless God will remove His everlasting laws out of the universe it must be so, and to expect Him to do that is to expect Him to change His nature, which would be a much more dire calamity than the trouble which comes upon the wicked from his course of wilful opposition to righteousness. For in this life it is always open to a man to turn round, to change his course, and so to escape the shipwreck of his existence upon the rocks of perdition. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isa_55:7). God will not remove His righteous laws out of the sinner’s way, but He holds out every inducement and encouragement to the transgressor to come into harmony with them.

II. The proverb has received abundant illustrations in the history of our race. Pharaoh designed to drive the Israelitish nation into the Red Sea and so to destroy them. God delivered them, and their oppressors “came in their stead.” Daniel’s persecutors planned to take his life, “the righteous man was delivered out of trouble,” and his wicked slanderers met with the death to which they had hoped to bring him. Instances might be multiplied in which this truth has been illustrated both in Scripture history and in more modern times.

OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS

It is a “righteous thing” with God (2Th_1:6-7), though to men it seems an incredible paradox, and a news far more wonderful than acceptable, that there should be such a transmutation of conditions on both sides, to contraries.—Trapp.

Though the afflictions of good men seem sharp and grievous, yet they are not perpetual. Before ever God bring His into troubles, He appointeth how they shall be preserved in them, and pass through them, and get out of them. He doth as well see their arrival, as their launching forth, and the end of the boisterous storms which they must endure as well as the beginning and entrance thereof.—Dod.

In this world trouble is a common place, as the world is, both to the righteous and the wicked, and it beseems them both. The one has his proper and due place, the other has his place of honour. For, as St. Basil saith, He that saith that tribulation doth not beseem a righteous man, saith nothing else but that an adversary doth not beseem a valiant champion. Sometimes God Himself doth put the righteous into trouble, and then as the place belongeth to them, so St. Chrysostom tells us, God doth it not to bring the trouble upon us, but rather by the trouble to bring us to Himself. Sometimes the injustice or malice of men doth thrust them into it, and then, God delivering them, puts the wicked in their place. For this world is full of misplacings, the wicked being seated where the godly should be, the godly seated where the wicked should be. God Almighty is pleased sometimes to put things in order, and, showing mercy to the righteous, doth give the wicked their due place.—Jermin.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, shall enter into trouble.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

As always in death, so sometimes in life, the righteous are remarkably favoured and the wicked crossed. 1. Good people are helped out of the distresses which they thought themselves lost in, and their feet are set in a large room, Psa 66:12; Psa 34:19. God has found out a way to deliver his people even when they have despaired and their enemies have triumphed, as if the wilderness had shut them in. 2. The wicked have fallen into the distresses which they thought themselves far from, nay, which they had been instrumental to bring the righteous into, so that they seem to come in their stead, as a ransom for the just. Mordecai is saved from the gallows, Daniel from the lion's den, and Peter from the prison; and their persecutors come in their stead. The Israelites are delivered out of the Red Sea and the Egyptians drowned in it. So precious are the saints in God's eye that he gives men for them, Isa 43:3, Isa 43:4.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Perhaps the trouble prepared by the wicked, and which he inherits (compare Pro 11:6).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 8. The wicked cometh in his stead.] Often God makes this distinction; in public calamities and in sudden accidents he rescues the righteous, and leaves the wicked, who has filled up the measure of his iniquities, to be seized by the hand of death. Justice, then, does its own work; for mercy has been rejected.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(8) The righteous is delivered out of trouble. . . .—That is, misfortunes pass by the righteous and fall upon the wicked. (Comp. Pro_21:18.) Or, it may mean that the righteous “is taken away from the evil to come “by death (Isa_57:1), the wicked lives on to suffer in his place.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The righteous is delivered out of trouble,.... One after another he comes into, if not in this life, yet at death; which is to him a perfect deliverance out of all tribulation; see Rev 7:14; or when the wicked die, as in Pro 11:7, then the righteous are delivered from the trouble they gave them, or designed to give them; though it seems rather to design deliverance from trouble in the first sense, since it follows,

and the wicked cometh in his stead; as Haman did in the room of Mordecai, and was hanged upon the gallows the other was delivered from, and he had prepared for him, Est 7:10; and as Daniel was delivered from the lion's den, and his enemies thrown into it, Dan 6:24; and as in the latter day the righteous will be delivered from all their persecutors, and antichrist will be destroyed with the breath of Christ's mouth, and the brightness of his coming; and then they that destroyed the earth shall be destroyed themselves, Rev 11:18.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

For him. As comparatively nothing worth to his master, chap. xxi. 18., and Isaias xliii. 3

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Is by God’s providence brought into the same miseries, which either he designed against the righteous, or had formerly inflicted upon the righteous, and now lately removed from them.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

8. The righteous is delivered — A plain proverb, often illustrated in actual life. See Dan_6:14, seq.; Est_5:14; Est_7:8-10; Psa_7:15.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Out of trouble; i.e. God is at hand to help the righteous out of straits (de angustia, Vulgate); or takes him away from the evil to come. (Isa_57:1 RAPC Wis 4:10-14) Septuagint, "escapeth from the chase." In his stead. (Pro_21:18) The evil from which the righteous is saved fails upon the wicked. As Abraham says to Dives in the parable, "He is comforted, but thou art tormented". (comp. Luk_16:25) Of this substitution many instances occur in Scripture. Thus Haman was hanged on the gallows which he had erected for Mordecai; (Est_7:10) Daniel"s accusers were cast into the den of lions from which he was saved. (Dan_6:24 Isa_43:4)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Cometh - Into trouble.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

8 The righteous is delivered from trouble,

And the godless comes in his stead.

The succession of the tenses gives the same meaning as when, periodizing, we say: while the one is delivered, the other, on the contrary, falls before the same danger. נחלץ (vid., under Isa 58:11) followed by the historical tense, the expression of the principal fact, is the perfect. The statement here made clothes itself after the manner of a parable in the form of history. It is true there are not wanting experiences of an opposite kind (from that here stated), because divine justice manifests itself in this world only as a prelude, but not perfectly and finally; but the poet considers this, that as a rule destruction falls upon the godless, which the righteous with the help of God escapes; and this he realizes as a moral motive. In itself תּחתּיו may also have only the meaning of the exchange of places, but the lxx translate αντ ̓ αὐτοῦ, and thus in the sense of representation the proverb appears to be understood in connection with Pro 21:18 (cf. the prophetico-historical application, Isa 43:4). The idea of atonement has, however, no application here, for the essence of atonement consists in the offering up of an innocent one in the room of the guilty, and its force lies in the offering up of self; the meaning is only, that if the divinely-ordained linking together of cause and effect in the realms of nature and of history brings with it evil, this brings to the godless destruction, while it opens the way of deliverance for the righteous, so that the godless becomes for the righteous the כּפר, or, as we might say in a figure of similar import, the lightning conductor.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

Thus do these two classes change places in the dispensations of God. The same providence often marks Divine faithfulness and retributive justice. The Israelites were delivered out of the trouble of the Red Sea; the Egyptians came in their stead. (Exo 14:21-28 .) Mordecai was delivered from the gallows; Haman was hanged upon it. (Est 5:14 ; Est 7:10 .) The noble confessors in Babylon were saved from the fire; their executioners were "slain" by it. (Dan 3:22-26 .) Daniel was preserved from the lions; his accusers were devoured by them. (Dan 6:22-24 .) Peter was snatched from death; his jailers and persecutors were condemned. (Act 12:6, Act 12:19, Act 12:23 .) Thus "precious in the sight of the LORD is" the life, no less than "the death, of his saints." (Psa 116:15 .) For the deliverance of one precious soul out of trouble he will bring a nation into distress. (1Sa 23:25-28 .) Yea — for the ransom of his own chosen people, he gave not only "Egypt" of old, but in later times "Ethiopia and Seba — men for them, and people for their life."†1 To what source but his own free and sovereign love can we trace this special estimation? "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee." (Isa 43:4, ut supra.) We do not always mark the same outward manifestation. But the love is unchangeably the same. And how should it at once lay us in the dust, and build our confidence upon an unshaking foundation!

Footnotes:

†1 Isa 43:3-4, with 2Ch 14:9-11 . 2Ki 19:9 . Compare Pro 21:18 . How different their estimation in the eyes of man, when an Eastern autocrat was willing to cut them off at a single blow as a worthless thing! Est 3:8-15 . Compare 1Co 4:13 .

Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (1846) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

v. 8. The righteous is delivered out of trouble, the Lord Himself being his Deliverer, 2Ti 4:18, and the wicked cometh in his stead, taking the place of the righteous in the midst of trouble.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

A righteous man is extricated from trouble when the wicked man dies, and this is connected to the preceding verse.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.