Proverbs 24:22 - Exposition

For their calamity shall rise suddenly. Though these dissidents seem to succeed for a time, yet retribution shall fall suddenly upon them. And who knoweth the ruin of them both? This seems to mean the two classes, those who dishonour God and those who dishonour the king; but no such distinction is made in the previous verse; the rebels are classed under one category. Wordsworth renders, "the stroke of vengeance from them both," i . e . from God and the king. Otherwise, we must give another signification to שׁניהם , and, with the Syriac and many modern commentators, take it in the sense of "years," which שְׁנֵיהֶם will bear, as Job 36:11 , and translate, "The destruction [equivalent to 'end'] of their years, who knoweth?" No one can tell when the crisis of their fate shall come; but it will arrive some day, and then the time of their prosperity will be at an end. Septuagint, "For they (God and the king) will suddenly punish the ungodly; and who shall know the vengeance of both ( τὰς τιμωρίας ἀμφοτέρων )?" After this the LXX . inserts three proverbs not found now in the Hebrew, which, however, Ewald considers to have been translated from a Hebrew original: "A son that keepeth the commandment shall be safe from destruction ( Proverbs 29:27 , Vulgate), and he hath fully received it (the word). Let no lie be spoken by the tongue of the king; and no he shall proceed from his tongue. The king's tongue is a sword, and not of flesh; and whosoever shall be delivered unto it shall be destroyed; for if his anger be inflamed, he consumes men with their nerves, and devours men's bones, and burns them up as a flame, so that they are not food for the young eagles." The allusion at the end is to animals killed by lightning. Here follows the series of proverbs ( Proverbs 30:1-14 ) called in the Hebrew, "The words of Agur." The second part of "the words of Agur," and "the words of Lemuel" (Pr 30:15-31:9) follow in the Greek after Proverbs 24:34 of the Hebrew. Delitzsch explains the matter thus: In the copy from which the Alexandrines translated, the appendix (Pr 30-31:9) was divided into two parts, half of it standing after "the words of the wise" (Pr 22:17-24:22), and half after the supplement containing further sayings of wise men ( Proverbs 24:23-34 ).