Proverbs 10:6

Blessings are upon the head of the just: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) Violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.—Curses and deeds of violence have proceeded from his mouth, but God frustrates them, they “return unto him void” (Isaiah 55:11), and, as it were, stop his mouth, reducing him to silence.

Benson Commentary

Proverbs 10:6. Blessings are upon the head of the just — All sorts of blessings are wished to them by men, and conferred upon them by God. But violence — Either, 1st, The fruit or punishment of their own violence: or, 2d, The violent, injurious, and mischievous practices of others against them, deserved by their own violence committed against others, and inflicted upon them by the righteous judgment of God; covereth the mouth of the wicked — That is, shall fall upon them. This phrase of covering the mouth, may be an allusion to the ancient custom of covering the faces of condemned malefactors.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:1 The comfort of parents much depends on their children; and this suggests to both, motives to their duties. 2,3. Though the righteous may be poor, the Lord will not suffer him to want what is needful for spiritual life. 4. Those who are fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, are likely to be rich in faith, and rich in good works. 5. Here is just blame of those who trifle away opportunities, both for here and for hereafter. 6. Abundance of blessings shall abide on good men; real blessings.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Covereth ... - The meaning is perhaps, the violence which the wicked has done is as a bandage over his mouth, reducing him to a silence and shame, like that of the leper Leviticus 13:45; Micah 3:7 or the condemned criminal Esther 7:8, whose "face is covered."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. Blessings—literally, "Praises." The last clause is better: "The mouth of the wicked covereth (or concealeth) violence (or mischievous devices)" to be executed in due time (Ps 5:9; 10:7; Ro 3:14), and hence has no praises (compare Pr 10:11).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Blessings are upon the head of the just; all sorts of blessings are wished to them by men, and conferred upon them by God. He saith, upon their head, either to show that these blessings come from above; and that openly, in the sight of the world, so that he can confidently speak of them to God’s praise, and to his own comfort and honour; or because blessings were commonly pronounced by men with this ceremony, by laying their hands upon the head of the party blessed.

Violence covereth the mouth of the wicked; violence (either,

1. Their own violence or injustice, which may be here put for the fruit or punishment of it, as iniquity is oft put for the punishment of iniquity. Or,

2. Violence, or the violent, and injurious, and mischievous practices of others against them, deserved by their own violence committed against others, and inflicted upon them by the curse and righteous judgment of God) shall cover the mouth of the wicked, i.e. shall fall upon them. This phrase of covering their mouth is used, either,

1. With allusion to the ancient custom of covering the mouths and faces of condemned malefactors; of which see Esther 7:8 Job 9:24. Or,

2. To signify that the curse and judgment of God upon them should be so manifestly just, that their mouths should be stopped, and they not be able to speak a word against God, or for themselves. Or,

3. To intimate that God’s judgment upon them should be public and evident to all that behold them, as any covering put upon a man’s mouth or face is, as for the same reason the blessings of the just were said to be upon their heads. And the mouth may be put for the face or countenance, by a synecdoche. But this clause is otherwise rendered by divers learned interpreters, the mouth of the wicked covereth (i.e. concealeth or smothereth within itself, and doth not utter that) violence or injury, which he meditateth in his heart, and designeth to do to others, and therefore shall be accursed and miserable. But this suits not so well with the former clause, wherein the blessings of the just are not meant actively, of those blessings which they wish or give to others, but passively, of those blessings which others wish or give to them; and consequently this violence is not understood of that which they do to others, but of that which is done to them by others.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Blessings are upon the head of the just,.... That seeks for righteousness, not by the works of the law, but by faith; that lives by faith upon the righteousness of Christ, and is justified by it, made, accounted, and reckoned just through it; and, in consequence of his faith, does justly, and lives soberly, righteously, and godly: upon his "head", who is Christ, blessings are; for he is "the head of every such man", 1 Corinthians 11:3; not the pope of Rome, but Christ, is head of the church; he is the representative and federal head of all the elect, both in eternity and time; he is a political head to them, as a king is to his subjects; an economical one, as the husband is the head of the wife, a father the head of his family, and a master the head of his servants; and he is in such sense a head to them as a natural head is to its body; he is of the same nature with them, superior to them, a perfect, only, everliving, and everlasting head. Upon him all the blessings of grace and goodness are; his people are blessed with them in him, their head, Ephesians 1:3; and from him they descend to them, the members of his body, just as the oil on Aaron's head ran down his beard to the skirts of his garments. So in an ancient writing of the Jews (y), this passage being mentioned, it is asked, Who is the head of the righteous? The answer is, the middle pillar; by whom they seem to mean a middle person, the Mediator, the Messiah. Or else, a part being put for the whole, the meaning is, that blessings are upon the persons of righteous ones, as the word is used in Proverbs 11:26; the Targum renders it,

"the heads of the righteous.''

All covenant blessings, spiritual ones, such as are blessings indeed, solid and substantial, irreversible, and for ever; particularly a justifying righteousness, from whence they are denominated just; pardon of sin, peace of soul, every sanctifying grace, the blessing of adoption, and a right to eternal life: these being said to be on the "head" of them, may denote that they come from above, and descend in a way of grace upon them; that they are visible and manifest; that they reside, continue, and remain upon them; that they are as an ornament and crown unto them; and that they are a security of them that no wrath and vengeance can fall upon them. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions, read, "the blessing of the Lord is upon the head of the just"; and such are all the blessings before mentioned;

but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked; that is, either his violent dealings are open and manifest, and are a scandal to him, as well as entail a curse on him; or rather the fruit and effect of his violence and oppression, the punishment due thereunto, is so righteously inflicted on him, that his mouth is stopped, and he has not one word to say against the just judgments of God upon him, for his violent usage of men, whether here or hereafter; see Psalm 107:42. Some render the words, "the mouth of the wicked covereth violence" (z); palliates and excuses it, and calls it by another name; or hides and conceals that which is in the heart, and does not utter it; see Proverbs 10:18. The Targum is,

"in the mouth of the wicked rapine is covered;''

as a sweet morsel under their tongue, though in the end bitterness.

(y) Tikkune Zohar. Correct. 47. fol. 87. 2.((z) "os impiorum operiet injuriam", Montanus, Baynus; "operit iniquitem", Vatablus, Mercerus.

Geneva Study Bible

Blessings are upon the head of the just: but violence covereth the mouth of {c} the wicked.

(c) When their wickedness is discovered, they will be as dumb and not know what to say.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. violence covereth &c.] This, which is the rendering both of A.V. and R.V. text, is to be preferred to the rendering of R.V. marg., “the mouth of the wicked covereth violence,” i.e. in what he says there is a covert purpose of violence, which he endeavours to conceal.

So rendered it may mean either (a) the violence of the wicked man himself covers his mouth—he never opens it without pouring forth violence; and then perhaps we are to complete the parallelism by supplying from the first clause, “you may judge therefore what comes upon his head”; or (b) in more obvious parallelism, instead of the blessings which all men pour upon the head of the just, the mouth of the wicked they cover with violence, with reproaches, and it may be with blows (Acts 23:2). To this, however, it is objected that the Heb. word always connotes wrongful treatment.

The idea of covering the mouth as a sign of condemnation is farfetched, and it is not borne out by the passages cited in support of it (Esther 7:8; Leviticus 13:45; Ezekiel 24:17; Micah 3:7), in all of which it is the “lip” or the “face,” and not the “mouth” which is covered.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Violence covereth the mouth of the wicked. So Ver. 11. This is usually explained to mean either that the consciousness of his own iniquity silences the sinner when he would speak against the righteous, or his violence and injustice, returning on his own head, are like a bandage over his mouth (Leviticus 13:45; Micah 3:7), reducing him to shame and silence. Others, again, consider the signification to be - in default of the good, honest words which should proceed from a man's mouth, the sinner pours forth injustice and wickedness. But it is best (as in Ver. 14) to take "mouth" as the subject: "The mouth of the wicked concealeth violence," that he may wait for the opportunity of practising it. The contrast is between the manifest blessedness of the righteous and the secret sinister proceedings of the evil. The Vulgate and Septuagint give, "the blessing of the Lord." For "violence" the Septuagint has πένθος ἄωρον, "untimely grief;" the Hebrew word chamas bearing also the sense of "misery." Proverbs 10:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

There now follow two proverbs regarding the blessings and the curses which come to men, and which flow forth from them. Here, however, as throughout, we take each proverb by itself, that it might not appear as if we had a tetrastich before us. The first of these two antithetic distichs is:

Blessings (come) on the head of the just;

But violence covereth the mouth of the godless.

Blessings are, without being distinguished, bestowed as well as prayed for from above. Regarding the undistinguished uses of לראשׁ (of a recompense of reward), בּראשׁ (of penal recompense), and על־ראשׁ (especially of punishment), vid., under Genesis 49:26. If we understand, with Ewald, Bertheau, Elster, Zckler, and others, the two lines after Proverbs 10:11, Proverbs 19:28, cf. Proverbs 10:18 : the mouth of the wicked covers (hides under a mask) violence, inasmuch as he speaks words of blessing while thoughts of malediction lurk behind them (Psalm 62:5), then we renounce the sharpness of the contrast. On the contrary, it is preserved if we interpret וּפי as object: the violence that has gone out from it covereth the mouth of the wicked, i.e., it falls back upon his foul mouth; or as Fleischer (and Oetinger almost the same) paraphrases it: the deeds of violence that have gone forth from them are given back to them in curses and maledictions, so that going back they stop, as it were, their mouth, they bring them to silence; for it is unnecessary to take פי synecdochically for פני (cf. e.g., Psalm 69:8), since in בּרכות 6a are perhaps chiefly meant blessings of thankful acknowledgment on the part of men, and the giving prominence to the mouth of the wicked from which nothing good proceeds is well accounted for. The parallels do not hinder us thus to explain, since parts of proverbs repeating themselves in the Book of Proverbs often show a change of the meaning (vid., p. 24f.). Hitzig's conjecture, יכּסה (better יכסּה), is unnecessary; for elsewhere we read, as here, that חמס (violence), jure talionis, covers, יכּסּה, the wicked, Habakkuk 2:17, or that he, using "violence," therewith covers the whole of his external appearance, i.e., gives to it the branded impress of the unrighteousness he has done (vid., Khler under Malachi 2:16).