Proverbs 3:31

Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:27-35 Our business is to observe the precepts of Christ, and to copy his example; to do justice, to love mercy, and to beware of covetousness; to be ready for every good work, avoiding needless strife, and bearing evils, if possible, rather than seeking redress by law. It will be found there is little got by striving. Let us not envy prosperous oppressors; far be it from the disciples of Christ to choose any of their ways. These truths may be despised by the covetous and luxurious, but everlasting contempt will be the portion of such scorners, while Divine favour is shown to the humble believer.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A protest against the tendency to worship success, to think the lot of the "man of violence" enviable, and therefore to be chosen.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

31. oppressor—or man of mischief. The destiny of successful evildoers warns against desiring their lot (Ps 37:1, 2, 35, 36).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Envy thou not the oppressor, for his impunity and success in his wicked designs, and the wealth which he gains by his unrighteous practices.

Choose none of his ways; for what men envy in others they seek to obtain for themselves.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Envy thou not the oppressor,.... The man that gets wealth and riches by acts of injustice, by oppressing the poor, by rapine and violence; do not envy his prosperity, and the substance he is possessed of; do not wish to be in his place and circumstances, to enjoy his affluence and ease; do not look upon his happiness with an envious eye and a fretting heart; he is far from being a happy man; his end will be bad; see Psalm 37:1;

and choose none of his ways; which he has used to get his riches in; do not follow him in them; for should you do as he has done, and get ever so much, since this would be with the loss of your souls, of what advantage would it be? He makes the best choice that chooses the "good part" that shall not be taken away, Luke 10:42; Christ, and the ways of Christ.

Geneva Study Bible

{o} Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.

(o) Do not wish to be like him.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

31. Envy thou not] The temporal rewards of wisdom, health (Proverbs 3:8), long life (Proverbs 3:16), riches and honour (ib.), as they may be withheld from thee (Proverbs 3:11-12), so may they be surpassed by the prosperity of the wicked; but let not the comparison of thy lot with his move thee to envy, for the true reward of wisdom is higher and surer (Proverbs 3:32-35). Psalms 73. illustrates these verses.

oppressor] Lit. man of violence, R.V.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 31. - Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways. The thought of strife in the preceding verse leads to that of oppression, and the precept is directed against fellowship with those who outrage the general law of benevolence and justice, Envy not; i.e. as Stuart, "Do not anxiously covet the booty which men of violence acquire." Success and wealth may follow from severity and extortion, but the man who acquires prosperity by these means is not to be envied even by the victim of his oppression (for the verb, see Proverbs 23:17; Proverbs 24:1, 19). The oppressor (ish khamas); literally, a man of violence (see margin). The expression occurs in Proverbs 14:29; Psalm 18:41, and in its plural form, ish khamamim, "man of violences," in 2 Samuel 22:49; Psalm 140:1, 4. The man of violence is one who "grinds the faces of the poor," and whose conduct is rapacious, violent, and unjust. And choose none of his ways; literally, and choose not all his ways, i.e. with a view to acquire the same wealth, greatness, and power. The LXX. renders this verse, "Do not acquire the hatred of evil men, neither be jealous of their ways," evidently from having taken tiv'khar, "choose," in the second hemistich, for tith'khan, "be jealous." Proverbs 3:31

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

These exhortations to neighbourly love in the form of warning against whatever is opposed to it, are followed by the warning against fellowship with the loveless:

31 Be not envious toward the man of violence,

     And have no pleasure in all his ways.

32 For an abhorrence to Jahve is the perverse,

     But with the upight is His secret.

The conceptions of jealousy and envy lie in קנּא (derived by Schultens from קנא, Arab. ḳanâ, intensius rubere) inseparable from each other. The lxx, which for תקנא reads תקנה (κτήσῃ), brings the envy into 31b, as if the words here were ואל־תּתחר, as in Psalm 37:1, Psalm 37:7 (there the lxx has μὴ παραζήλου, here μηδὲ ζηλώσῃς). There is no reason for correcting our text in accordance with this (substituting תּתחר for תּבחר as Hitzig does), because בּכל־דּרכיו would be too vague an expression for the object of the envy, while אל־תבחר altogether agrees with it; and the contrary remark, that בּחר בּכּל is fundamentally no בחר, fails since (1) בחר frequently expresses pleasure in anything without the idea of choice, and (2) "have not pleasure in all his ways" is in the Hebrew style equivalent to "in any one of his ways;" Ewald, 323b. He who does "violence to the law" (Zephaniah 3:4) becomes thereby, according to the common course of the world, a person who is feared, whose authority, power, and resources are increased, but one must not therefore envy him, nor on any side take pleasure in his conduct, which in all respects is to be reprobated; for the נלוז, inflexus, tortuosus (vid., Proverbs 2:15), who swerves from the right way and goes in a crooked false way, is an object of Jahve's abhorrence, while, on the contrary, the just, who with a right mind walks in the right way, is Jahve's סוד - an echo of Psalm 25:14. סוד (R. סד, to be firm, compressed) means properly the being pressed together, or sitting together (cf. the Arab. wisâd, wisâdt, a cushion, divan, corresponding in form to the Hebr. יסוד) for the purpose of private communication and conversation (הוּסד), and then partly the confidential intercourse, as here (cf. Job 29:4), partly the private communication, the secret (Amos 3:7). lxx, ἐν δὲ δικαίοις [οὐ] συνεδριάζει. Those who are out of the way, who prefer to the simplicity of right-doing all manner of crooked ways, are contrary to God, and He may have nothing to do with them; but the right-minded He makes partakers of His most intimate intercourse, He deals with them as His friends.