Proverbs 10:30 Commentary and Bible Study

Before we interpret this proverb we should first consider the present state of man, and we should remember what Scripture teaches about the earth that now is. Man is born a mortal being with the sentence of death upon him. He cannot escape this situation imposed on him by the Lord on account of the fall, and therefore every child of God anticipates physical death, burial in the ground, and removal from the earth as the scene of his activity. Will the righteous never be moved? Furthermore, the whole creation is cursed by God and subject to vanity for man’s sake, so that it grows old, and groans and travails in pain together. ‘Heaven and earth shall pass away’, says Christ, ‘but my words shall not pass away.’ How then will there be an earth to be inhabited? The proverb assumes these two things: that the righteous will be raised from the dead and that the earth, which will be burned up with fire, will be recreated free from the curse. This proverb is so wonderful because it recognises the present state of man and the earth, and yet it still assures us that righteous will never be moved and that, by implication, they will inherit the earth. Their stability is not based on anything as fragile and uncertain as man’s inherent ability to live, or the enduring nature of created things: both of these will fail. The truth of these promises is based entirely on the faithfulness of God and his power to reverse the irreversible effects of sin. He marks the death of his saints as something precious, and he ensure that the wicked will have no part in the future glorified earth. The righteous will therefore never be moved because they will not be moved out of the plan of their sovereign, omnipotent Creator, but the wicked who strut through the earth now and claim it as their own, will share no part in the inheritance of the righteous.