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Selected Verse: Proverbs 3:31 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Pr 3:31	King James	Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
oppressor--or man of mischief. The destiny of successful evildoers warns against desiring their lot (Psa 37:1-2, Psa 37:35-36).

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

oppressor--or man of mischief. The destiny of successful evildoers warns against desiring their lot (Psa 37:1-2, Psa 37:35-36).

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
These exhortations to neighbourly love in the form of warning against whatever is opposed to it, are followed by the warning against fellowship with the loveless: 31 Be not envious toward the man of violence, And have no pleasure in all his ways. 32 For an abhorrence to Jahve is the perverse, But with the upight is His secret. The conceptions of jealousy and envy lie in קנּא (derived by Schultens from קנא, Arab. ḳanâ, intensius rubere) inseparable from each other. The lxx, which for תקנא reads תקנה (κτήσῃ), brings the envy into 31b, as if the words here were ואל־תּתחר, as in Psa 37:1, Psa 37:7 (there the lxx has μὴ παραζήλου, here μηδὲ ζηλώσῃς). There is no reason for correcting our text in accordance with this (substituting תּתחר for תּבחר as Hitzig does), because בּכל־דּרכיו would be too vague an expression for the object of the envy, while אל־תבחר altogether agrees with it; and the contrary remark, that בּחר בּכּל is fundamentally no בחר, fails since (1) בחר frequently expresses pleasure in anything without the idea of choice, and (2) "have not pleasure in all his ways" is in the Hebrew style equivalent to "in any one of his ways;" Ewald, 323b. He who does "violence to the law" (Zep 3:4) becomes thereby, according to the common course of the world, a person who is feared, whose authority, power, and resources are increased, but one must not therefore envy him, nor on any side take pleasure in his conduct, which in all respects is to be reprobated; for the נלוז, inflexus, tortuosus (vid., Pro 2:15), who swerves from the right way and goes in a crooked false way, is an object of Jahve's abhorrence, while, on the contrary, the just, who with a right mind walks in the right way, is Jahve's סוד - an echo of Psa 25:14. סוד (R. סד, to be firm, compressed) means properly the being pressed together, or sitting together (cf. the Arab. wisâd, wisâdt, a cushion, divan, corresponding in form to the Hebr. יסוד) for the purpose of private communication and conversation (הוּסד), and then partly the confidential intercourse, as here (cf. Job 29:4), partly the private communication, the secret (Amo 3:7). lxx, ἐν δὲ δικαίοις [οὐ] συνεδριάζει. Those who are out of the way, who prefer to the simplicity of right-doing all manner of crooked ways, are contrary to God, and He may have nothing to do with them; but the right-minded He makes partakers of His most intimate intercourse, He deals with them as His friends.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

These exhortations to neighbourly love in the form of warning against whatever is opposed to it, are followed by the warning against fellowship with the loveless:

31 Be not envious toward the man of violence,

And have no pleasure in all his ways.

32 For an abhorrence to Jahve is the perverse,

But with the upight is His secret.

The conceptions of jealousy and envy lie in קנּא (derived by Schultens from קנא, Arab. ḳanâ, intensius rubere) inseparable from each other. The lxx, which for תקנא reads תקנה (κτήσῃ), brings the envy into 31b, as if the words here were ואל־תּתחר, as in Psa 37:1, Psa 37:7 (there the lxx has μὴ παραζήλου, here μηδὲ ζηλώσῃς). There is no reason for correcting our text in accordance with this (substituting תּתחר for תּבחר as Hitzig does), because בּכל־דּרכיו would be too vague an expression for the object of the envy, while אל־תבחר altogether agrees with it; and the contrary remark, that בּחר בּכּל is fundamentally no בחר, fails since (1) בחר frequently expresses pleasure in anything without the idea of choice, and (2) "have not pleasure in all his ways" is in the Hebrew style equivalent to "in any one of his ways;" Ewald, 323b. He who does "violence to the law" (Zep 3:4) becomes thereby, according to the common course of the world, a person who is feared, whose authority, power, and resources are increased, but one must not therefore envy him, nor on any side take pleasure in his conduct, which in all respects is to be reprobated; for the נלוז, inflexus, tortuosus (vid., Pro 2:15), who swerves from the right way and goes in a crooked false way, is an object of Jahve's abhorrence, while, on the contrary, the just, who with a right mind walks in the right way, is Jahve's סוד - an echo of Psa 25:14. סוד (R. סד, to be firm, compressed) means properly the being pressed together, or sitting together (cf. the Arab. wisâd, wisâdt, a cushion, divan, corresponding in form to the Hebr. יסוד) for the purpose of private communication and conversation (הוּסד), and then partly the confidential intercourse, as here (cf. Job 29:4), partly the private communication, the secret (Amo 3:7). lxx, ἐν δὲ δικαίοις [οὐ] συνεδριάζει. Those who are out of the way, who prefer to the simplicity of right-doing all manner of crooked ways, are contrary to God, and He may have nothing to do with them; but the right-minded He makes partakers of His most intimate intercourse, He deals with them as His friends.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
Envy not - For his impunity and success.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
Envy thou not the oppressor - O how bewitching is power! Every man desires it; and yet all hate tyrants. But query, if all had power, would not the major part be tyrants?

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³⁵ I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.
³⁶ Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

¹ A Psalm of David. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
² For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

⁷ Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

⁴ As I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle;

¹⁴ The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.

¹⁵ Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:

⁴ Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.

⁷ Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

¹ A Psalm of David. Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.