17:5 The one who mocks the poor 1 insults 2 his Creator;
whoever rejoices over disaster will not go unpunished.
24:17 Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, 3
and when he stumbles do not let your heart rejoice,
24:18 lest the Lord see it, and be displeased, 4
and turn his wrath away from him. 5
1:12 You should not 6 have gloated 7 when your relatives 8 suffered calamity. 9
You should not have rejoiced over the people of Judah when they were destroyed. 10
You should not have boasted 11 when they suffered adversity. 12
7:8 My enemies, 13 do not gloat 14 over me!
Though I have fallen, I will get up.
Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. 15
1 sn The parallelism helps define the subject matter: The one who “mocks the poor” (NAB, NASB, NIV) is probably one who “rejoices [NIV gloats] over disaster.” The poverty is hereby explained as a disaster that came to some. The topic of the parable is the person who mocks others by making fun of their misfortune.
2 sn The Hebrew word translated “insults” (חֵרֵף, kheref) means “reproach; taunt” (as with a cutting taunt); it describes words that show contempt for or insult God. The idea of reproaching the Creator may be mistaking and blaming God’s providential control of the world (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 337). W. G. Plaut, however, suggests that mocking the poor means holding up their poverty as a personal failure and thus offending their dignity and their divine nature (Proverbs, 187).
3 sn The saying (vv. 17, 18) warns against gloating over the misfortune of one’s enemies. The prohibition is formed with two negated jussives “do not rejoice” and “let not be glad,” the second qualified by “your heart” as the subject, signifying the inner satisfaction of such a defeat.
4 tn Heb “and [it is] evil in his eyes.”
5 sn The judgment of God should strike a note of fear in the heart of people (e.g., Lev 19:17-18). His judgment is not to be taken lightly, or personalized as a victory. If that were to happen, then the
6 tn In vv. 12-14 there are eight prohibitions which summarize the nature of the Lord’s complaint against Edom. Each prohibition alludes to something that Edom did to Judah that should not have been done by one “brother” to another. It is because of these violations that the Lord has initiated judgment against Edom. In the Hebrew text these prohibitions are expressed by אַל (’al, “not”) plus the jussive form of the verb, which is common in negative commands of immediate urgency. Such constructions would normally have the sense of prohibiting something either not yet begun (i.e., “do not start to …”) or something already in process at the time of speaking (i.e., “stop…”). Here, however, it seems more likely that the prohibitions refer to a situation in past rather than future time (i.e., “you should not have …”). If so, the verbs are being used in a rhetorical fashion, as though the prophet were vividly projecting himself back into the events that he is describing and urging the Edomites not to do what in fact they have already done.
7 tn The Hebrew expression “to look upon” often has the sense of “to feast the eyes upon” or “to gloat over” (cf. v. 13).
8 tn Heb “your brother” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NCV “your brother Israel.”
9 tn Heb “in the day of your brother, in the day of his calamity.” This expression is probably a hendiadys meaning, “in the day of your brother’s calamity.” The Hebrew word נָכְרוֹ (nokhro, “his calamity”)_is probably a word-play on נָכְרִים (nokherim, “foreigners”) in v. 11.
10 tn Heb “in the day of their destruction” (so KJV, NASB, NIV); NAB, NRSV “on the day of their ruin.”
11 tn Or “boasted with your mouth.” The Hebrew text includes the phrase “with your mouth,” which is redundant in English and has been left untranslated.
12 tn Heb “in the day of adversity”; NASB “in the day of their distress.”
13 tn The singular form is understood as collective.
14 tn Or “rejoice” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NCV “don’t laugh at me.”
15 sn Darkness represents judgment; light (also in v. 9) symbolizes deliverance. The