Proverbs 6:15

Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) Suddenly shall he be broken.—Shattered as a potter’s vessel (Isaiah 30:14), without hope of recovery. This character of a malicious mischief-maker would seem to be especially hateful to God; it is described in like terms in Psalms 64 and a similar fate foretold of it; in Proverbs 6:19 also it is held up as the very worst of the seven detestable things there mentioned.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:12-19 If the slothful are to be condemned, who do nothing, much more those that do all the ill they can. Observe how such a man is described. He says and does every thing artfully, and with design. His ruin shall come without warning, and without relief. Here is a list of things hateful to God. Those sins are in a special manner provoking to God, which are hurtful to the comfort of human life. These things which God hates, we must hate in ourselves; it is nothing to hate them in others. Let us shun all such practices, and watch and pray against them; and avoid, with marked disapproval, all who are guilty of them, whatever may be their rank.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The duper and the dupe shall share the same calamity.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. Suddenness aggravates evil (compare Pr 6:11; 29:1).

calamity—literally, "a crushing weight."

broken—shivered as a potter's vessel; utterly destroyed (Ps 2:9).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Heb. and there shall be no healing; no prevention of it beforehand, nor recovery afterward.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly,.... Unthought of and unexpected: he that deviseth mischief to others secretly shall have no warning of his own ruin, nor time and means of preventing it; the destruction of antichrist will be sudden, and of all wicked men at the coming of Christ, 1 Thessalonians 5:3;

suddenly shall he be broken without remedy; or, "and there shall be no healing" (b): his bones will be broken to pieces, and there will be no cure for him; or he shall be like an earthen vessel, which, when broke, cannot be put together again. The ruin of wicked men is sudden, inevitable, and irreparable; so antichrist will "come to his end, and none shall help him", Daniel 11:45.

(b) "et non sanitas", Pagninus, Montanus; "curatio", Junius & Tremellius; "medicina", Piscator, Cocceius.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy. Great sins, as Muffet, in loc., observes, have great punishments; neither only great, but sudden. Therefore; Hebrew, al-ken. A Nemesis or retribution awaits this man of malice and deceit. His calamity or destruction is represented as the direct result of, as flowing forth from, what he has done. His calamity; Hebrew, eydo. On eyd, see Proverbs 1:26. Shall come suddenly; i.e. sooner than he anticipates; when he thinks his diabolical plans are succeeding, then suddenly his victims will discover his fraud and malice, and will rise and inflict the punishment which is his due. Suddenly; petha, a variation of pithom just used. Shall he be broken; Hebrew, yish-shaver; Vulgate, conteretur. The verb shavar, "to break," "to break to pieces," is used of ships which are wrecked (Isaiah 14:29; Ezekiel 27:34; Jonah 1:4); of an army which is defeated and dispersed (Daniel 11:22; 2 Chronicles 14:12); of the destruction of a kingdom, city, or people (Isaiah 8:15; Jeremiah 48:4); and of the complete prostration of the spirit of man by affliction (Psalm 34:19); and as such, in the passage before us, conveys the idea of the complete ruin of this man. It is a destruction that shall break him up. Without remedy (Hebrew, v'eyn mar'pe; literally, and there is no remedy. There shall be, as Fleischer, as it were, no means of recovery for his shattered members. His destruction shall be irremediable, or as the LXX., a συντριβή ἀνίαψτος, a contritio insanibilis; or as the Vulgate, nec habebit ultra medicinam. The idea seems to be taken from the shattered fragments of a potter's vessel, which it is impossible to reunite. So in the case of the man whose life has been one of fraud, deceit, and malice, there is for him no hope of any recovery. The language may seem exaggerated, but the picture is painted with this high colouring to exhibit a strong deterrent to such a line of conduct, and further, it may be remarked that, in the present day, only the most confiding would again put trust in a man who has wilfully and maliciously deceived them (cf. Isaiah 30:14). The second hemistich of this verse occurs again verbatim in Proverbs 29:1. Proverbs 6:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With the 14th verse the description terminates. A worthless and a wicked person is he who does such things. The point lies in the characteristic out of which the conclusion is drawn: therefore his ruin will suddenly come upon him, etc. Regarding איד, the root-meaning of which is illustrated by Amos 2:13, vid., at Proverbs 1:26. פּתאם is an old accus. of an absol. פּתא, of the same meaning as פּתע, used as an adverbial accus., both originating in the root-idea of splitting, opening, breaking out and breaking forth. "Shall be broken to pieces" (as a brittle potter's vessel, Psalm 2:9; Isaiah 30:14; Jeremiah 29:11) is a frequent figure for the destruction (שׁבר) of an army (cf. Arab. ânksar âljysh), of a city or a state, a man. ואין continues the ישּׁבר as Proverbs 29:1 : there shall be as it were no means of recovery for his shattered members (Fl.). Without the Vav this אין מרפּא would be a clause conceived of accusatively, and thus adverbially: without any healing.