Proverbs 11:31 Commentary and Bible Study

This proverb is about the severity of the judgment of the wicked in hell, and is an argument from the lesser to the greater. Because the righteous do not receive their reward in this life but in the world to come, and because the comparison requires that the righteous are recompensed in the same sense as the wicked, it is clear that this recompense is a matter of discipline for sin and not of reward for good works. The words ‘in the earth’ should not be carried over into the second half of the verse, for the punishment of the wicked is not limited to the here and now. If there is judgment even for the righteous in this life, then how much more severely will God take account of the conduct of the wicked? The righteous have received God’s promise that he will never forsake them; they have been adopted as his beloved children; they are united to Christ and can never be separated from him, and yet at times they suffer severe disciplines during the course of their earthly lives. This happens to wean them from sin, to teach them patience, to show that must bear many of the same trials in common with the wicked but respond to them very differently, and to help them to love the world to come more than this world. It is true that God’s intention in chastising his people – their correction and training – is not at all the same as that in recompensing the wicked – their eternal destruction – but both are his response to sin in the lives of men and women. One can be cured, the other cannot; one is delivered in fatherly love, the other in judicial punishment; one is comparatively gentle, the other has the full force of God’s anger. Can the wicked expect to escape from justice when even the righteous are not entirely spared? This is the dream they need to be delivered from.