Proverbs 28:8 Commentary and Bible Study

The message of this proverb is that those who take measures to bypass conscience and ignore its promptings, who push ahead with their evil intentions and thrust aside the standards of God, will find that he always has a way of thwarting them and bring them into judgment. His judgments are constantly operating in ways that are so skilful and so impossible to avoid that the transgressor should prepare immediately to face the punishment that will inevitably follow. God commands us to show mercy to each other, to remember those who are disadvantaged and powerless in the world, to not exploit the weak for our own gain, and yet here is someone who ignores all of that and says, I will ride on the backs of the poor and make myself rich at their expense. How little power man has, and yet what great boasts he makes! Usury was forbidden in Israel (Exodus 22:25); they were to lend freely to their own people and yet the unscrupulous constantly practised it. The gain that came from profiteering was something evil in the sight of God, but the judgment was already operating while the sinful behaviour was still in progress. All the cruelty, all the planning and scheming, all the gloating over gain is work being done, in the providence of God, to prepare riches which God will give back again to the poor. How easily the Lord reverses the gains of the wicked, and makes them work against themselves. What man would work so diligently to accumulate unjust wealth if he knew that as soon as he had finished it was going to be taken from him and given back to those he had defrauded?. What has he gained from all his injustice? The proverb does not even bother to tell us this, but the assumption is that the unscrupulous man has been removed from the scene. Perhaps he has died, and perhaps he has met a reversal of fortune which takes from him all his treasures while he is still alive; whatever the case the poor has reason to thank God for removing the one who cared nothing for them.