Proverbs 1:31 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Bible Comments

Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. Compare Deuteronomy 32:32, "Their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter." The sinner's sin is its own punishment. Compare Isaiah 3:9-11, "Woe unto their soul, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves ... the righteous ... shall eat the fruit of their doings," etc. (Jeremiah 6:19; Micah 7:13). Hell is not an arbitrary punishment, like human penalties, which have no necessary connection with the crimes, but a natural development of sin by a law of necessary consequence, as the fruit of a tree is the natural development of the seed and the bud (cf. also Isaiah 59:4; Galatians 6:8). On "filled with their own devices" - i:e., filled even to loathing, which is the final result of the pleasures of sin-cf. Psalms 78:29, "They did eat, and were well filled; for He gave them their own desire; ... but while their meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them." Men's own desires fulfilled are made their sorest plague (Psalms 106:15).

Proverbs 1:31

31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.