Proverbs 6:15 - Exposition

Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy. Great sins, as Muffet, in loc; observes, have great punishments; neither only great, but sudden. Therefore ; Hebrew, al-ken . A Nemesis or retribution awaits this man of malice and deceit. His calamity or destruction is represented as the direct result of, as flowing forth from, what he has done. His calamity ; Hebrew, eydo. On eyd, see Proverbs 1:26 . Shall come suddenly ; i.e. sooner than he anticipates; when he thinks his diabolical plans are succeeding, then suddenly his victims will discover his fraud and malice, and will rise and inflict the punishment which is his due. Suddenly ; petha, a variation of pithom just used. Shall he be broken ; Hebrew, yish-shaver ; Vulgate, conteretur. The verb shavar, "to break," "to break to pieces," is used of ships which are wrecked ( Isaiah 14:29 ; Ezekiel 27:34 ; Jonah 1:4 ); of an army which is defeated and dispersed ( Daniel 11:22 ; 2 Chronicles 14:12 ); of the destruction of a kingdom, city, or people ( Isaiah 8:15 ; Jeremiah 48:4 ); and of the complete prostration of the spirit of man by affliction ( Psalms 34:19 ); and as such, in the passage before us, conveys the idea of the complete ruin of this man. It is a destruction that shall break him up. Without remedy (Hebrew, v)eyn mar)pe ; literally, and there is no remedy. There shall be, as Fleischer, as it were, no means of recovery for his shattered members. His destruction shall be irremediable, or as the LXX ; a συντριβή ἀνίαψτος , a contritio insanibilis ; or as the Vulgate, nec habebit ultra medicinam . The idea seems to be taken from the shattered fragments of a potter's vessel, which it is impossible to reunite. So in the case of the man whose life has been one of fraud, deceit, and malice, there is for him no hope of any recovery. The language may seem exaggerated, but the picture is painted with this high colouring to exhibit a strong deterrent to such a line of conduct, and further, it may be remarked that, in the present day, only the most confiding would again put trust in a man who has wilfully and maliciously deceived them (cf. Isaiah 30:14 ). The second hemistich of this verse occurs again verbatim in Proverbs 29:1 .