Proverbs 24:15,16 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Lay not wait, &c., against the dwelling of the righteous Against his person, or family, or possessions. Do him no injury, either by subtle and secret devices, or, as it follows, by manifest violence. For a just man falleth Into calamities, of which he evidently speaks both in the foregoing verse, and in the opposite and following branch of this verse; and in this sense the same word, נפל, is used in the next verse, and in many other places. It is never applied to sin; but, when set in opposition to the word riseth up, implies affliction or calamity, as Micah 7:8; Amos 8:4; Jeremiah 25:27; Psalms 34:19-20. These words are commonly, not only in sermons, but in books, applied to the falling into sin; and, that men may the more securely indulge themselves in their sins, and yet think themselves good men, they have added something to them; for the words are commonly cited thus: A just man falleth seven times a day, which last words, a day: or, in a day, are not in any translation of the Bible, much less in the original, but only in some corrupt editions of the vulgar Latin, which, against the plain scope of the context, and the meaning of the words, seems to understand this place of falling into sin. See Bishop Patrick. But the plain meaning is that which is given above, and seven times is put for frequently. The righteous fall frequently into trouble. But the wicked shall fall into mischief Into unavoidable and irrecoverable destruction, ofttimes in this life, and infallibly in the next.