Proverbs 11:8 Commentary and Bible Study

In all the trials of the righteous there is an end in sight and relief at hand. It is a great consolation to God’s people to know that they are loved by God and that their trials do not contradict God’s love, but rather they come because of it: ‘for whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth’ (Hebrews 12:6). Their trials are the prelude to their eternal joys, and they are considered a light thing in comparison to the great reward that awaits them in heaven. It is easy to bear hardship when we know it is only temporary. But the troubles of those who lack integrity are only just beginning, and they can look forward to no relief. Their troubles are not curative but judicial. To say they come in the stead of the righteous is to say that justice deems it fit that they swap places. It is God’s reversal on them because in their unrighteousness they mapped out a future so different for themselves. They assumed they would escape the trials of the righteous – which often they played a part in – and expected something so different. By ignoring all that God has said about the importance of righteousness they deceived themselves into thinking they were free from his judgment, but it caught up with them. ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?’ (1 Peter 4:17). Scriptural examples of these reversals are the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, the casting of Daniel’s accusers to the lions, and the hanging of Haman. The ultimate reversal is in the world to come.