The Righteous' Protection

For Monday, August 13, 2007
Proverbs 24:15-16

Lie not in wait as a wicked man against
the dwelling of the righteous;
do no violence to his home;
for the righteous falls seven times and rises again,
but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.

This proverb takes a twist. Instead of counseling against committing violence against the righteous as a moral issue, he addresses it from a standpoint of practicality. Conventional thought is that preying upon the righteous is easy work. The righteous are naive; they do not strike back; they tend to believe the best in people. Who better to take advantage of?

The righteous might seem easy prey, but they also prove themselves to be resilient. They may fall down, but they rise again. Why do they? The proverbs equate righteousness with wisdom. Thus they have the wisdom necessary to carry on. And they are not as naive as they may seem. A common mistake of the wicked is to believe that courtesy and generosity are symptomatic of naiveté, when instead they actually signify confidence. The righteous have not put their hope in possessions. Thus to lose such things does not undo them. The wicked, on the other hand, do put their faith in material possession and earthly power; thus to lose such things completely undermines their confidence. They miscalculate what is of real value; they underestimate the strength of others who are unlike them.

But the underlying cause of the righteous' resilience and the wicked's lack thereof is God. The Lord protects and delivers the righteous. He attacks the wicked. Never take God out of the equation. With such a perspective, David won victory over Goliath: "Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God... The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine" (1 Samuel 17:36-37).

As with David, there is more than meets the eye with the righteous. Even more so, the Lord is their deliverer.