Proverbs 4:17

Pro 4:17 For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.

Ver. 17. For they eat the bread of wickedness.] As Tartarians feed upon dead carcasses of horses, asses, cats, dogs, yea, when they stink, and are full of maggots, and hold them as dainty as we do venison. {a} As spiders feed upon aconite; {b} as Mithridates, and the maid in Pliny, upon spiders; or as the Turkish galley slaves upon opium - they will eat near an ounce at a time, as if it were bread (the tithe whereof would kill him that is not accustomed to it), and can neither sleep nor live without it.

{a} Petcham’s Valley of Vanity.

{b} A genus of poisonous plants, belonging to the family Ranunculaceae. esp. the common European species Aconitum Napellus, called also Monk’s-hood and Wolf’s-bane. Also applied loosely or erroneously to other poisonous plants.

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.

4:17 To eat . . . wickedness and drink . . . violence means that those attributes are at the very center of someone’s life. Just as we eat and drink to stay alive, evil people sustain themselves by committing evil acts.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Gotten by wicked means and cruel oppression.

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

Verse 17. For they eat the bread of wickedness] By privately stealing.

And drink the wine of violence.] By highway robbery.

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

(17) The bread of wickedness.—i.e., acquired by wickedness, as (Pro_10:2) “treasures of wickedness.”

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

17. This verse may be taken either (1) literally, they procure their bread and wine, get their living, by wickedness and violence, or (2) figuratively, wickedness and violence are to them as meat and drink. Comp. Job_15:16; Job_34:7; Joh_4:34.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For they eat the bread of wickedness,.... Either that is gotten by wicked and unlawful means, or wickedness itself is bread unto them; it is that to their minds as bread is to their bodies; they feed upon it with as much eagerness, appetite, gust, and pleasure; it is a sweet morsel to them; it is meat, drink, sleep, and everything to them; they take the highest satisfaction and the utmost delight in it;

and drink the wine of violence: either that which is obtained by rapine and violence; or they as greedily commit such acts of oppression and injury as a man drinks a glass of wine; they do not drink up iniquity like water only, but even like wine, the most generous and delicious. Wherefore all society with such men should be avoided.

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

Wickedness. Acquired thereby, or they make sin their food, chap. xxvi. 6.

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).

They eat the bread of wickedness: the sense is either,

1. Wickedness is as necessary and as pleasant to them as their bread; which suits well with the former verse. Or,

2. They live wholly upon what they get by wicked courses; which gives the reason of what he last said, why they could not sleep without prey.

The wine of violence, i.e. gotten by violence. See on the former clause.

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

17. Eat… bread of wickedness — The same sentiment in another form. They have as strong an appetite for wickedness and violence as for food and intoxicating drink. Bishop Patrick’s paraphrase is: “They live by robbery and spoil, having no other meat and drink but what is the fruit of rapine and violence, and not of their honest labours.”

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

For (ki, equivalent to the Greek gar ) is here explanatory. It serves not so much to introduce another independent statement, as one which accounts for the statement made in the preceding verse, that the wicked sleep not unless they have done mischief, i.e. it states the reason why they are so conditioned. There is no comparison expressed in the original, as the rendering adopted by Schultens and others implies, "For wickedness do they eat as bread, and violence do they drink as wine," which is evidently based on Job_15:16, "Which drinketh up iniquity like water," and Job_34:7, "Who drinketh up scorning like water." The literal rendering is, for they eat the bread of wickedness, and the wine of violence do they drink. The bread of wickedness (lekhem resha) is not bread which consists in wickedness, but bread which is obtained by wickedness, just as the wine of violence (yiyin khamasim) is not the wine which produces violence, but the wine that is procured by violent deep. Their support, what they eat and drink, is obtained by wickedness and injustice. They live by wrong. For such expressions as "the bread of wickedness" and "the wine of violence," cf. Deu_16:3, "the bread of affliction;" Psa_127:2, "the bread of sorrows;" and Amo_2:8, "the wine of the condemned." There is a charade of tense in the verbs, the first being perfect, "they have eaten," and the second future, "they shall drink," which Delitzsch explains as representing the twofold act first eating the bread, and then washing it down with wine.

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

For - Wickedness is as pleasant to them as their bread.

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