Proverbs 11:17 Commentary and Bible Study

There is a connection between acts of kindness to others and the blessing of God on their souls, just as there is a connection between the cruelties that we inflict on others and God’s recompense towards us. However, the unbeliever does not see this. If he did, then he might hesitate to afflict others because he would see that the justice of God means that he is in effect afflicting himself. The picture is of two very different people living in a community. One is a kind person, an outgoing person, who is not just looking after himself and his leisure and possessions. An outgoing person does not think along those lines. The merciful man does good to his own soul, because people will appreciate him. This often means that in the short term he is disadvantaged and his acts of mercy cost him. Mercy may require him to overlook a debt which another is too impoverished to pay; it may urge him to spend time and energy helping another back to health at his own expense; it may require him to forgive great offences and set aside revenge: all this benefits others, but perhaps at a cost to himself. Whatever it costs him along the way, he will feel better because he is living a useful life. He gets great satisfaction from that and it is good even for him in the natural sense. But somebody who is heartless and cruel, who is something of a despot and who cuts off tenants as soon as they cannot pay, and squeezes the utmost out of his servants: he troubles his own flesh, which means his body and also his family. He lives with his own tensions; he is hated, maybe he is even in danger. He brings all kind of difficulty upon himself and ill-will, and he is a menace and a nuisance to himself. He is indifferent to the suffering he causes, and may even enjoy being cruel. He regards the fear this produces in others as a kind of respect towards him. So what if he would plead for mercy if he was in their position? He is not in their position and so will ignore this. He brings suffering on his own flesh. This, as Lawson says, is more likely to trouble him than a warning against his soul which he does not believe in.