Proverbs 21:15–19

PROVERBS CHAPTER 21.

V. 15. It is joy to the just to do judgment, they love right and delight in performing its demands always; but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity, that is, the exercise of justice strikes terror to the heart of those who are active in wickedness.

V. 16. The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding, deliberately choosing the way of error, shall remain in the congregation of the dead, shall rest there, as in his everlasting home.

V. 17. He that loveth pleasure, the delights of costly luxuries, shall be a poor man; he that loveth wine and oil, perfumed oil used as a cosmetic, shall not be rich, for his property and earnings will be squandered for useless baubles and dangerous luxuries.

V. 18. The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, for by the punishment which he suffers he atones, in a way, for the errors of the pious or is substituted by God for his intended victim, as Haman was for Mordecai, and the transgressor for the upright. Compare Joshua 7, 26; Esther 7, 9.

V. 19. It is better to dwell in the wilderness, far from the habitations of men, than with a contentious and an angry woman. Cp. v.9.