Proverbs 27:4 - Exposition

Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous. Again substantives are used, as in Proverbs 27:3 , "Cruelty of wrath, and overflowing of anger." Figure to yourself the fierceness and cruelty of a sudden excitement of anger, or the bursting forth of passion which, like a flood, carries all before it; these may be violent for a time, yet they will subside when they have spent themselves. But who is able to stand before envy? or rather, jealousy . The reference is not so much to the general feeling of envy as to the outraged love in the relation of husband and wife (see Proverbs 6:34 , and note there). So Proverbs 8:6 , "Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the flashes thereof are flashes of fire, a very vehement flame." Such jealousy does not blaze forth in some sudden outbreak, and then die away; it lives and broods and feeds itself hourly with fresh aliment, and is ready to act at any moment, hesitating at no means to gratify itself, and sacrificing without mercy its victim. Septuagint, "Pitiless is wrath, and sharp is anger; but jealousy ( ζῆλος ) submits to nothing."