Proverbs 14:19 Commentary and Bible Study

This proverb describes a state of affairs that is so contrary to what we see in this world that we wonder how it could ever be fulfilled, but Solomon deliberately crashes into this world’s experience and asserts the triumph of God’s people over all the cunning, and scheming, and oppression of the world. The proverb is so powerful just because it says nothing about the millennia of hardship which believers have had to put up with in the world, but looks through it all to the ultimate reality of God’s secret purpose and then also to the final outcome. It treats this final outcome as if it had been true all along, and certainly this is the case. Even in the years of oppression, God is making all things work together for good for his people. The first are made to be last and the last are made first by the wisdom of his providence which the faithless cannot discern until it is too late. Though they are incapable of seeing it this way, unbelievers are being made to bow down before the privileged people of the Lord, who are his true favourites all along. Of course the situation cannot go on being so hard to discern forever, and the secret serving of the Lord’s purpose by his enemies must give way to their open prostration before the people of God. How great a reversal this will be is known best by those who have had to endure lifetimes of ill-treatment at the hands of the proud. When it looked impossible that anything could ever change, God intervened to make plain his love for his people and how much he valued them above the godless. How many centuries of arrogant disdain they had to endure! How long they had to put up with overblown confidence of the unrighteous that they had triumphed in all debate, reduced God’s people to a state of near non-existence, and proved the insignificance of their faith in God. But those who could not be humbled will be made to bow down, and those who were defenceless will be found within strong gates within the cities that they inhabit by the vindicating power of the Lord.