Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Proverbs 11:23
The desire of the righteous [is] only good: [but] the expectation of the wicked [is] wrath.
23. wrath ] Strictly, outpouring, or overflowing, sc. of (God’s) wrath. Comp. Heb 10:27; and rod , Rev 19:15.
Stated in full the proverb would be: That which the righteous desires is good, and therefore his desire when accomplished brings good or prosperity to himself; whereas the wicked, who desires evil, has nothing to look for but the just reward of evil, the displeasure of Almighty God.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The desire; either,
1. Properly so called. So the sense is, His desires are generally and constantly to do good to men, as wicked mens designs are to do hurt, and to execute wrath and hatred against them. Or rather,
2. The object, or event, or effect of their desire, as appears from the next clause, where
expectation is clearly put for the object or event of it. And the sense of the proverb seems to be this, The desires and expectations of the righteous shall end in their good and happiness, but the desires and expectations of wicked men shall be sadly disappointed, and end in the wrath of God and their utter ruin.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
23. (Compare Pr10:28).
wrathis that of God.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The desire of the righteous [is] only good,…. Or, “what is good” z; only good is the object of it. His desire is to do good, and that only; though be does not always do what he would do: as he delights in the law of God, after the inward man; as he is a righteous, holy, and good man, and would be conformable thereunto, and serves it with his mind, will, and affections; his desires are to the Lord, and to the remembrance of his name; he desires his favour, the discoveries of his love, communion with him, and communications of grace from him; he desires all spiritual good things, and everything that is good, for himself and others, and which he desires in submission to the will of God; and all things do work for and issue in his good. Good is what he is continually desirous of, wishing and praying for; and good is what he has eventually here and hereafter: though there may be many irregular and unlawful desires in him at times, and all things he has may not seem good; yet acting as a good man, his desires are only good, and there is nothing attends him but what is for his good;
[but] the expectation of the wicked [is] wrath; what he is desirous of, wishing, and looking for, is wrath and vengeance upon all that displease him, and he is angry with; he desires no good to them, but evil; he desires and hopes for nothing but what is offensive to God, and will bring upon him his fierce wrath and sore displeasure; so that eventually nothing else will be the fruit and consequence of his expectation and hope; and some are so shockingly profane, and so dreadfully hardened, that they wait for hell, as Jarchi on the place observes; they look for damnation and expect it, and are easy about it.
z “tantummodo bonum quid est”, Michaelis; “tantum bonum”, Cocceius; “nihil cupiunt quod bonum non sit”, Mercerus; “tamen bonum quid”, Gussetius, p. 39.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
23 The desire of the righteous is nothing but good,
The expectation of the godless is presumption.
This is usually explained with Fleischer: If the righteous wish for anything, their wish reaches to no other than a fortunate issue; but if the godless hope for anything, then there is to them in the end as their portion, not the good they hoped for, but wrath (Pro 10:28, cf. Pro 11:4). However, that is at once to be understood thus, as in , and that the phrase is to be rendered: the hope of the godless is God’s wrath, is doubtful. But denotes also want of moderation, and particularly in the form of presumption, Pro 21:24, Isa 16:6; and thus we gain the thought that the desire of the righteous is directed only to that which is good, and thus to an object that is attainable because well-pleasing to God, while on the contrary the hope of the godless consists only in the suggestions of their presumption, and thus is vain self-deceit. The punctuation is contrary to rule; correct texts have , for Dech stands before Athnach only if the Athnach -word has two syllables ( Torath Emeth, p. 43; Accentssystem, xviii. 4).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
23 The desire of the righteous is only good: but the expectation of the wicked is wrath.
This tells us what the desire and expectation of the righteous and of the wicked are and how they will prove, what they would have and what they shall have. 1. The righteous would have good, only good; all they desire is that it may go well with all about them; they wish no hurt to any, but happiness to all; as to themselves, their desire is not to gratify any evil lust, but to obtain the favour of a good God and to preserve the peace of a good conscience; and good they shall have, that good which they desire, Ps. xxxvii. 4. 2. The wicked would have wrath; they desire the woeful day, that God’s judgments may gratify their passion and revenge, may remove those that stand in their way, and that they may make an advantage to themselves by fishing in troubled waters; and wrath they shall have, so shall their doom be. They expect and desire mischief to others, but it shall return upon themselves; as they loved cursing, they shall have enough of it.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Pro 11:23
Verse 23 see comments on 10:24.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES.
Pro. 11:23. Wrath, i.e. Gods wrath (Zckler).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Pro. 11:23
We cannot understand the first clause of this verse to mean that all a righteous mans desires are good.
1. History contradicts it. Solomon must have known it was not true of his own father. David was a righteous man, but some of his desires were not only not good, but inhuman and devilish. Of all the good men of whom we read, whether in inspired or uninspired history, there is hardly one of whom some act is not recorded which reveals that their desires were sometimes sinful.
2. Present experience contradicts it. If those who are now looked upon as the salt of the earth were appealed to upon this matter they would emphatically deny that their desires were at all times and altogether good. But this we may affirm. I. That the main desire of a righteous man is that he may be good, and that to all his fellow-creatures good may be the final goal of ill. II. That there will be a period in his history when his desires will be only good. In nature all things tend towards a perfectiona completion. If no untoward circumstance prevent, a tree or a flower will go on growing until it has attained to the perfectness to which it has been ordained. The Christian is destined to attain to perfectness of moral beauty. And when this completion is arrived at his desires will be only good. See 1Jn. 3:1-2, etc. (For full treatment of the verse see Homiletics on chap. 10: Pro. 11:24; Pro. 11:28.)
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
Here we are to contrast a wish and an assurance (expectation) like that class of passages already alluded to where the last clause is intensive. The mere wish of the righteous is an intrinsic good; either first, because all actings of his heart, whether wise or unwise, will exercise him (Psa. 84:7), and will speed him to his celestial state; or secondly, because the wish of a righteous man, quoad a righteous man, will be a righteous wish, and, therefore, will be good in itself, and will be sure to be gratified. The wish of a righteous man, like the spongelets of a tree, is that which goes searching for Gods gifts, and is sure in the end to attain them. Therefore, emphasising only the wish of a righteous man will be made altogether to work for his good, however disappointed, and however kept low and troubled in the difficulties of the present life. But an assurance of the wicked; that is, a thing so grasped and reached as to be no longer a wish, but a certainty; wealth, when it is made his, or honour, when it is actually grasped, will not only be lost; will not only be followed by wrath in the sense of actually bringing it; but is wrath in the sense of being sent as punishment, and in the further sense that the sinner knew it all the time; and that his assurance, though it seemed to be a certainty of joy, was, lower down, a certainty of punishment; we mean by that an assurance (which he would confess if he were asked) that all his properties could end only in increasing retribution.Miller.
Desire is the wing of the soul, whereby it moveth, and is carried to the thing which it loveth as the eagle to the carcase, to feed itself upon it, and be satisfied with it (Bishop Reynolds). The desire of the righteous must be good because it is Gods own work (Psa. 10:17; Rom. 8:26-27). It must be only good, because it centres in Himself (Psa. 73:25; Isa. 26:8-9). The corrupt mixture of worldliness, selfishness, and pride is against our better will (Rom. 7:15). In despite of this mighty assaultLord, all my desire is before thee; thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee (Psa. 38:9; Joh. 21:17).Bridges.
Evil motions haunt his mind other-whiles, but there they inhabit not As the ferryman plies the oar, and eyes the shore homeward, where he would be, yet there comes a gust of wind that carries him back again, so it is oft with a Christian. But every man is with God so good as he desires to be. They are written in the book of life that do what they can, though they cannot do as they would.Trapp.
Pro. 11:23 and chap. Pro. 10:24. I. What, or who is the righteous man?
1. He is one whom God makes righteous by bestowing righteousness upon himby counting the righteousness of His Son for his (Rom. 5:19). A man must be righteous by imputation before he can be made good, for the Spirit which makes our persons goodwhich sanctifies our natureis the fruit of the righteousness which is by Jesus Christ.
2. God makes a man righteous by bestowing upon him a principle of righteousness. Men must have eyes before they can see, tongues before they can speak, and legs before they go: even so a man must be made habitually good and righteous before he can work righteousness.
3. The man is practically righteous. Fruits show outwardly what the heart is principled with. Mark how the apostle words it: Being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness (Rom. 6:22). The works flow from the heart of a righteous manof a man that before he had any good work had a twofold righteousness imparted to himone to make him righteous before God, the other to principle him to be righteous before the world. II. What a righteous man desires. A righteous man is sometimes taken for his best part, or as he is a second creation, as in 2Co. 5:17; Col. 3:10, etc. In which places the sinful flesh, the old man, the outward manall of which are corrupt according to the deceitful lustsare excluded, and so pared off from the man, that he is righteous. As Paul in Rom. 7:15-17 severs himself in twain,himself as he is spiritual from himself as he is carnalso the righteous man here must be taken for the I that would do the good, the I that hates the evil. There is a spring that yieldeth water good and clear, but the channels through which this water comes to us are muddy and foul: now, of the channels the water receives a disadvantage, and so come to us savouring of what came not with them from the fountain of gracethe Holy Ghostbut from the channels through which they must pass. The desires of a righteous man, then, are comprised under,
(1) those they would have accomplished here, and
(2) those which they know cannot be enjoyed until after death. And the first are comprised under communion with God in spirit and the liberty of enjoyment of His ordinances. And the second are comprehended under the desire of that presence of the Lord which is personal, and their desire to be in that country where their Lord personally is. These last have a long neck: for they look over the brazen wall of this, quite into another world. They breed a divorce betwixt the soul and all inordinate love of the world; their strength is such, that they are ready to dissolve that sweet knot of union betwixt body and soul and to grapple with the King of Terrors. These desires do deal with death, as Jacobs love to Rachel did with the seven long years which he was to serve for her. III. What is meant by granting the righteous mans desires. It is to accomplish them. There is nothing that God likes of ours better than he likes our true desires. For, indeed, true desires are the smoke of our incense, the flower of our graces, the vital part of the new man. Right desires jump with Gods mind; they are the life of prayer; they are a mans kindness to God; (chap. Pro. 19:22) and they which will take him up from the ground, and carry him after God to do His will, be the work never so hard. Is it any marvel, then, that God has promised they shall be granted?Bunyan.
The desire of all, as it is desire, is only of good; but as desire is accomplished, so it is the desire of the righteous only that is good, and their desire accomplished is good only. It is simply good, there is no mixture of evil added to it, yea, it is not only all good, but all the good that desire can wish.Jermin.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
(23) The desire of the righteous is only good, and therefore it, being in accordance with the will of God, is granted to them.
The expectation of the wicked is wrath.Rather, presumption; they do not ask in the way or for the things which God wills they should (Jas. 4:3), and therefore it is mere presumption on their part to expect the fulfilment of their desires.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
23. Desire of the righteous is only good Tends to and ends in good to him.
Expectation of the wicked is wrath Tends to and ends in “wrath” to him: the divine indignation at his evil conduct being followed by the punishment of his wickedness.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
v. 23. The desire of the righteous is only good,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Pro 11:23 The desire of the righteous [is] only good: [but] the expectation of the wicked [is] wrath.
Ver. 23. The desire of the righteous is only good, ] i.e., So far as he is righteous, or spiritual, he “delights in the law of God after the inward man,” Rom 7:22 “willing in all things to live honestly.” Heb 13:18 Evil motions haunt his mind otherwhiles, but there they inhabit not. Lust was a stranger to David, as Peter Martyr observes out of Nathan’s parable; – “There came a traveller to this rich man.” 2Sa 12:4 The main stream of his desires, the course and current of his heart ran upon God and godliness. Psa 119:4-5 ; Psa 39:1 ; Psa 39:3 He resolved to do better than he did. “The spirit ever lusteth against the flesh”; howbeit when the flesh gets the wind and hill of the spirit, all is not so well carried. As the ferryman plies the oar, and eyes the shore homeward, where he would be, yet there comes a gust of wind that carries him back again, so it is oft with a Christian. But every man is with God so good as he desires to be. In vitae libro scribuntur qui quod possunt faciunt, etsi quod debent non possunt. a They are written in the book of life that do what good they can, though they cannot do as they would.
But the expectation of the wicked is wrath,
a Bernard.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Illustrated in verses: Pro 11:24-31.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Pro 11:23
Pro 11:23
“The desire of the righteous is only good; But the expectation of the wicked is wrath.”
“What good men desire ends in their favor: a bad man’s hope ends in the wrath of God.
Pro 11:23. Instead of wrath, Youngs Literal translation gives transgression, and the Septuagint gives shall perish. The passage means that the righteous desire only that which is good while the wicked desire that which is wrong (transgression) or that which brings Gods wrath, causing them to perish. How wonderful to have right desires! And how bad to crave the wrong thing!
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
desire: Psa 10:17, Psa 27:4, Psa 37:4, Psa 39:7, Psa 39:8, Psa 119:5, Psa 119:10, Isa 26:9, Jer 17:16, Mat 5:6
expectation: Pro 11:7, Pro 10:28, Rom 2:8, Rom 2:9, Heb 10:27
Reciprocal: 1Sa 23:20 – all the desire Psa 20:4 – General Pro 12:5 – thoughts
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Pro 11:23. The desire of the righteous is only good The righteous desire nothing, but that it may be well with all men; but the wicked wish for trouble and disturbance to all others but themselves, that they may execute their malice and wrath upon those whom they hate. Bishop Patrick. Or, rather, the meaning is, the desires and expectations of the righteous shall end in their good and happiness, but the desires and expectations of the wicked shall be disappointed, and end in the wrath of God.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
11:23 The desire of the righteous [is] only good: [but] the expectation of the wicked {m} [is] wrath.
(m) They can look for nothing but God’s vengeance.