Proverbs 19:19 Commentary and Bible Study

Here is a man with an evil temper, whose friend does not like to see him get into such difficulty, and therefore intervenes to rescue him from the consequences, the disaster which his anger brings on him. Let us suppose that he succeeds. His friend has lost his temper and behaved foolishly and offended someone whom he cannot afford to fall out with, someone on whom he is dependent for some vital service in life. The friend of the angry man sees what difficulty his friend’s anger has caused, and comes in to pacify the situation and try to make amends with the offended party. A huge effort is required to do this. It takes much pouring of oil on troubled waters, much calming of the situation with gentle words. Eventually he succeeds, though the effort costs him much time and patience. But lo and behold, the next day, the foolish man has lost his temper with someone else and a new problem needs to be sorted out. The friend has to start all over again. What is going on here? How can his friend not have learnt from the previous occasion and seen the need to control his anger and hold back from making inflammatory remarks. Instead he has lashed out again heedless of the damage, and now he is in a new crisis situation. What must be done? Has the friend got to rally to his help all over again? But what is the point? There is clearly a fatal flaw in his friend; he is evidently never going to learn however many times he is rescued from the consequences of his own foolishness. He is like a sick animal that is found on its back and unable to stand, or trapped in some snare into which it has wandered. A kind hearted person who finds it sets it on its feet again, or releases it from the trap. But the next day he finds it back in exactly the same position again as if it wanted to be in trouble. This is going to become a never-ending rescue operation.Here is another evil that often comes with an angry person: in the madness of his anger, he is incapable of controlling himself even though he knows the terrible problems that it will lead to. Anger gets hold of him with such power that no amount of previous awful experiences is able to restrain him. He is like a ball with a bias which always rolls away from a straight line. Anger is irrational, because when it gets hold of a person, it prevents all other considerations. It is first of all a failure of self-control. It fills the individual with a toxic sense of their own importance which pours itself into their passions, so that they become an unstoppable force. Never mind the friend that has stepped in to rescue them in the past; never mind the embarrassment felt when anger subsided and the angry man came to his senses; never mind the vows not to fall into the power of anger again. But this resembles many sins in that we think we can control them, but really they control us until God gives us the victory over them.