- Mark A. Smith
Deep Calls Unto Deep
*The plundering of *the ungodly*drags him away *with them *because they refuse *to build *upon justice. (mast)
Proverbs 21:7 (NKJV)
7 The violence of the wicked will destroy them, Because they refuse to do justice.
*[The plundering of] literally, forceful plunder (Ezk.45:9). In direct continuation of the previous proverb, it is a result of the art of plundering through a lying tongue (Rev.18:23; 20:3). These lies lead to ‘devastation’ (Rev.20:8). It is a plunder out of the depths of ruin and the snare of death (Pr.21:6; 1Tim.3:7; 2Tim.2:26). Death calls to death (Ps.42:7), and death leads into death (Rev.6:8). Death is the motivation of its own plundering (Mk.3:22-30), for he knows his own ruin (Rev.12:12), and he struggles to survive holding on to a life that is not life (Ezk.18:20; Jn.6:53). He drags himself away into death, plundering for that which is not life (1Cor.6:13; Matt.6:25; 10:28; Rom.7:24). He literally plunders his own ruin (Pr.8:36; 18:21; So.8:6; Jn.6:63; 12:25; Rev.12:11; 1Pet.3:10; 1Jn.2:15-17). Lies are the trust fund of the wicked (Pr.24:2; Hos.12:2; Amos 3), but they shall be plundered by ungodly living. That’s the picture behind this ‘devastation’ of the ungodly tongue.
*[the ungodly] literally, a hostile group against God. This is a genitive construct that identifies the political party of Death and Hell’s devastation (Rev.6:8; 20:13-14). As an adjective of the violent plundering, it groups together the motivation and the sour fruit into one cause and effect. The flattery of their tongue drags their victims to Hell (Ps.12). They make promises of liberty by usury (2Pet.2:19), and they create nothing but negative dividends for their investors (Matt.15:14; Ps.35:7-8; 57:6; 119:84; Pr.28:10; Matt.18:6). The ungodly are proud to stand against the way of the Most High (Isa.14:13-15; 38:15-18). They understand the verdict of their wickedness yet despise God to his face (Matt.7:21-23; Rom.9:19-20; Dt.7:10; 32:39-41; Jn.7:7; 15:18). They are hostile to the testimony of the Law that declares them guilty (Rom.8:6-8). They not only suppress the knowledge of God’s existence but the guilt (Rom.1:18-19; 2:15). And they suppress the knowledge of His existence precisely because of that guilt (1Cor.15:56). But this doesn’t mean they know the depth of that guilt (Jer.17:9; Rev.2:24; 20:12); and, therefore, right and wrong (Jon.4:11; Pr.21:2; Dt.12:8; Jdgs.21:25). They lack the faculty of discernment because they are void of the Spirit of godliness (Ps.34:11; Pr.1:7; 9:10; 14:27; Isa.11:2-3; Rom.8:5-9; Rom.3:18). Therefore they became a law to themselves to choose what is good and evil for themselves through their own desires demonstrating the “work” of the law of sin and death (Rom.2:4; 8:2). Therefore their ungodliness leads to death (Rom.6:23).
*[drags him away] literally, to catch and pull with a net. Again, this is an antecedent to the previous proverb regarding the lying tongue (Pr.21:6). So the violent plundering of the ungodly system is both the cause of the lying tongue and the effect of the lying tongue (Hab.1:14-17; 2Tim.2:26; 3:13; Eph.2:2; 2Cor.4:4). He, that is, the representative head of the ungodly, carries himself away with the wicked through his lying tongue that plunders the treasuries that his deceit has built (Ezk.28:11-19). The whole political system is a party of death (1Jn.2:15-17). It seeks to exist for one purpose, and that is to plunder itself to death (Pr.14:12; 16:25). Its wounds are self-inflicted. In the rebellion against the commands of God, he drags himself to Hell by resisting the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51). He lays out a net for his own steps by holding up his political party with the lies of his own deceit (Pr.21:6; Ps.75:5), suppressing his guilt in unrighteousness from the means of his deliverance (Acts 19:9; 19:23-25; 2Pet.2:2-3, 19-22). He creates his own ruin to rescue himself from the devastation of his sin (2Pet.3:16), but there is only one solution to his poverty (Isa.6:5), yet he doesn’t have it in him to obey it (Isa.6:9-13). He says to himself that he must continue building on a foundation of lies (2Tim.3:13-15; Rev.18:23; 1Cor.3:11-17; 2Cor.5:1; Gal.2:18)!
*[with them] antecedently, them. Because it is suffixed to the verb, it is an antecedent to the previous two proverbs. In the two previous proverbs, the “diligent” are in association with the “treasuries.” It is with these that the plural pronoun ‘them’ is antecedent. Though suffixed to the verb, the verb is singular and masculine. The Piel stem doesn’t permit a reflexive action, so the Qal singular stem is not antecedent in conjunction with the ungodly but with the deceptive tongue that (represents) and causes the diligent to build these treasuries by his manipulative plunder rendering them all ungodly. He is found caught in his own trap because he purchased the lie (Pr.1:10-19), which said pooling together for one purse would protect each of their treasuries. So he “sweeps” the plunder under the rug by writing off all the losses, which inflates the purse to secure the treasuries and tries to reduce the collective debt. But it’s all sorcery through a frame of deceit because the treasuries do not share the same standard by inflating the use of the currency, which devalues the standards of the treasuries. Therefore all “their” hard work comes to nothing by pursuing and being carried away by Death and Hell (Isa.64:6).
*[because they refuse] conjunctively, to abjure. This [is] conjunctive with the ungodly. The verb stem is plural and joins the representative head and the ungodly into one party. Together they act to abjure what is right. And they ‘despise’ the system of justice that was the precedent before them. They change the rules to win the day. The Piel stem is negated by the definition of the verb. Therefore the state of the ungodly remains by their refusal and nullification of justice. Because they rejected the fear of the Lord, they continue to stumble over their own ungodliness (Pr.1:24-33). They reject the way of righteousness though it was already laid out before them as a narrow and smooth path (Ps.27:11). Grace is too good to be true, so they create a heart of adventure and build with the materials that waste away in the sun (Isa.59:7-8). A steadfast heart is boring to them (Jer.6:16), so they whitewash their religion with the strength of the fleshly appearance (Zech.4:6). They cast behind their back the food that will balance the soul’s dependence on life (Ps.50:16-22). They turn their heads to the medicine that will heal and hold together the frame of their souls (Ps.103). All that is good for eternal life is spurned and mocked (2Pet.3:3). They scoff at every instruction that paves the path toward life in Christ (Mk.8:33; 15:30).
*[to build upon justice] literally, towards doing him justice. The verb stem is the Qal infinitive. But the definition of the verb is to manufacture or to produce. So it’s a refusal to make right what is wrong. It is a denial that God’s Law is just and right (Matt.10:33). Therefore the ungodly way is perverse because it goes around the guilt to create a path of distortion that paints over the reality of the wrath of God (Matt.23:27; Eph.2:1 Rom.1:18), which is the just penalty for our sins (Lk.23:35-43; Ps.51:5; Rom.5:12, 19; Lk.18:9-14), with an imaginary beauty that suppresses the truth in their unrighteousness (Jer.4:30; Ezk.23:39-46; Isa.3:14-23). But the pure in heart see the reality of God’s grace as it is in truth and will work what is right for justice. Therefore this is antichrist, to deny the foundation of God’s good justice (Jer.6:16). It is to carve out a new system of justice to pervert what God has written in stone with his own finger by putting the image of humanity upon it and attributing it to God’s holy name (Rom.1:21-25). It offers nothing good to God’s true justice and dishonors the Spirit of grace (Heb.10:26-31). Its likeness buds no flower and bears no fruit (Hos.9:16; Jude 12; Lk.8:4), for all its works are built with guilt as the material and upon death as the foundation and frame (Ps.22:15; 103:14; Gen.3:19). But the guilty soul will not be made to stand on the day of justice (1Cor.10:12). His works will drag him away like dust in the wind (Nah.1:3; Isa.5:24). His whole house will come to nothing because it possesses no grace to hold it together, having denied the Law and the Testimony (Isa.8:20; Lk.11:17-19; Jn.10:34-38).
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