Proverbs 19:29 - Exposition

Judgments are prepared for scorners (see on Proverbs 19:25 ). The judgments here are those inflicted by the providence of God, as in Proverbs 3:34 . Scorners may deride and affect to scorn the judgments of God and man, but they are warned that retribution awaits them. And stripes for the back of fools; Vulgate, Et mallei percutientes stultorum corporibus (comp. Proverbs 10:13 : Proverbs 26:3 ). We had the word here rendered "stripes" ( מַהַלוּמוֹת , mahalumoth ) in Proverbs 18:6 . The certainty of punishment in the case of transgressors is a truth often insisted on even by heathens. Examples will occur to all readers, from the old Greek oracle, οὐδεὶς ἀνθρώπων ἀδικῶν τίσιν οὐκ ἀποτίσει , to Horace's " Raro antecedentem scelestum ," etc. (See on Proverbs 20:30 , where, however, the punishment is of human infliction.)