CRITICAL NOTES.—
Proverbs 24:16. The wicked shall fall. Delitzsch reads, “the wicked are overthrown when calamity falls on them, i.e., they do not rise again and again as the just man does.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Proverbs 24:15-16
A SOCIAL AMBUSH
I. A common practice of the wicked man in relation to the good. When we think of an ambush of men lying in wait to spring upon their foes at a fitting opportunity, two hostile parties are at once brought before us, we feel that there must be deep enmity on one side at least, or men would not be at such pains to overthrow their fellow-men. And this is indeed the case in society as a whole. Men are divided into two great parties. On one side stand the lovers of righteousness, and on the other the lovers of sin; and the latter must ever be more or less actively opposed to the former. But their favourite and most common method of attack is that indicated in the text. Wrong-doers are naturally cowards, and in their endeavours to injure better men than themselves they shrink from open attack. They are fully conscious that they could not stand their ground in a fair fight in the open field, and so they try to fall upon their foe in a moment when he is off his guard and in a place where he least expects to meet them. In other words, evil men do not often openly assail either the character or the position of a good man, but by lying words spoken in his absence they try to blacken the first, and by secret schemes to overthrow the second.
II. An utterly useless attempt of the wicked man in relation to the good. It is useless to try to kill a tree by lopping off the branches. Such a process may for a time deprive it of its beauty and stop its growth, but while the root has its hold upon the soil and can draw nourishment to itself from unseen sources beneath the surface it will live, and as soon as the axe has ceased to strike it will begin again to clothe itself in greenness and beauty. So it is with a righteous man. His enemies may succeed in bringing about his temporary overthrow and in depriving his outward life of much comfort, but the springs of his existence are fed from an invisible and unfailing source, and his well-being is not dependent upon external circumstances. And so even if the malice of the wicked is permitted to strip him of some things which made his life more apparently prosperous and secure, there is an inner life which they cannot touch, and which enables him in due time to recover from the wounds which they inflict either upon his character or his circumstances. For “This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shall condemn.” (Isaiah 54:17.)
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Proverbs 24:15. Because it spites the wicked, that the godly dwell in safety, therefore they lay wait against their dwelling, by affliction and miseries seeking to throw it down, and … because the virtues of the godly condemn the vices of the wicked, therefore they lay wait and search into their dwelling houses to espy out their faults, because the goodness of the righteous shameth the naughtiness of the wicked, therefore they seek to break in even into their bedchambers and places of rest, and there to discover their errors and infirmities. Solomon forbidding them to do it, showeth it to be their manner to do it.—Jermin.
Proverbs 24:16. Perhaps you will say, had I fallen only once, I would not be much afraid; but I have often fallen before the enemy, and one day I must perish. But hear what God says:—The righteous man falls not once or twice, but many times, and still he rises. Your experience of former deliverances should encourage your hopes of new deliverances, for the salvations of the Lord are never exhausted. In six troubles He will deliver, and in seven there shall no evil touch you.—Lawson.
God’s saints are bound to “rejoice when they fall into divers temptations.” What though they fall into them? not go in step by step, but be precipitated, plunged over head and ears. Say they fall not into one, but into many crosses—as they seldom come single—yet “be exceeding glad” says the apostle, as the merchant is to see his ships come laden in.—Trapp.