Proverbs 12:7 Commentary and Bible Study

While the wicked are alive they continue to plot and scheme, to hate and murder, and the verse teaches us to have patience about this situation. While they are alive they boast great things, but when they are gone there is nothing left. Even in this life the righteous see the wicked taken away in judgment, but in heaven it will be perfectly so. While they were alive they made life miserable for God’s children; they threatened them, ostracised them, and persecuted them. Perhaps it was an employer who was unreasonably harsh towards the staff, or a sibling consumed by jealous spite. When they are gone, the righteous listen to the wonderful silence that follows their departure; death has a purging effect. How futile were all the boasts of the wicked; death has shown how powerless they really are. Death is therefore a friend to the righteous, for not only is he immune from its sting himself, but it delivers him from the presence of all who oppose him. But the house of the righteous shall stand. After the wicked have done their worst and all their schemes have been put into practice, the righteous have not been swept into oblivion as they desired, but by the power of God their plots have been thwarted and they discover that God was secretly working to frustrate them. Vengeance belongs to God and he must remove our enemies, and not our own hand.