Proverbs 1:26

I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(26) I also will laugh . . . I will mock.—For expressions like this, comp. Psalm 2:4; Psalm 37:13; Psalm 59:8, where the same actions are attributed to God. They are not to be taken literally, of course, for the sight of human folly can give no pleasure to Him. They signify that He will act as if He mocked when He refuses to hear their cry. Similar expressions, imputing human actions to the Almighty, are Genesis 11:5; Genesis 11:7; 2Chronicles 16:9; Psalm 18:9; human feelings, Genesis 6:6.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:20-33 Solomon, having showed how dangerous it is to hearken to the temptations of Satan, here declares how dangerous it is not to hearken to the calls of God. Christ himself is Wisdom, is Wisdoms. Three sorts of persons are here called by Him: 1. Simple ones. Sinners are fond of their simple notions of good and evil, their simple prejudices against the ways of God, and flatter themselves in their wickedness. 2. Scorners. Proud, jovial people, that make a jest of every thing. Scoffers at religion, that run down every thing sacred and serious. 3. Fools. Those are the worst of fools that hate to be taught, and have a rooted dislike to serious godliness. The precept is plain; Turn you at my reproof. We do not make a right use of reproofs, if we do not turn from evil to that which is good. The promises are very encouraging. Men cannot turn by any power of their own; but God answers, Behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you. Special grace is needful to sincere conversion. But that grace shall never be denied to any who seek it. The love of Christ, and the promises mingled with his reproofs, surely should have the attention of every one. It may well be asked, how long men mean to proceed in such a perilous path, when the uncertainty of life and the consequences of dying without Christ are considered? Now sinners live at ease, and set sorrow at defiance; but their calamity will come. Now God is ready to hear their prayers; but then they shall cry in vain. Are we yet despisers of wisdom? Let us hearken diligently, and obey the Lord Jesus, that we may enjoy peace of conscience and confidence in God; be free from evil, in life, in death, and for ever.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Compare the marginal reference. The scorn and derision with which men look on pride and malice, baffled and put to shame, has something that answers to it in the Divine Judgment. It is, however, significant that in the fuller revelation of the mind and will of the Father in the person of the Son no such language meets us. Sadness, sternness, severity, there may be, but, from first to last, no word of mere derision.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

26, 27. In their extreme distress He will not only refuse help, but aggravate it by derision.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

As you have scoffed at me and my ways,

I also will laugh at your calamity, i.e. destroy you without pity, and take pleasure therein. Compare Revelation 18:20.

Your fear; the misery which you do or should fear. The act for the object, as Isaiah 8:12, and elsewhere.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I also will laugh at your calamity,.... By way of retaliation, measuring measure for measure; even as they scorned him, and delighted in their scorning, now he in his turn will "laugh" at them and their distress; which act is ascribed to the Lord by an anthropopathy; see Psalm 2:4; signifying that he should not at all pity them, show no compassion to them, and have no mercy upon them; but rather express a pleasure and delight in displaying the glory of his justice in their destruction: the plain sense is, that no favour would be shown them, Isaiah 27:11. The word translated "calamity" signifies a "vapour" (f), or cloud; denoting it would be a very dark dispensation with the Jews, as it was when "wrath came upon them to the uttermost", 1 Thessalonians 2:16; even on their nation, city, and temple; as in their last destruction by the Romans, which is here intended;

I will mock when your fear cometh; which is the same thing in different words; for by "fear" is meant the dreadful calamity on which brought dread, terror, and consternation with it, and of which they had fearful apprehensions beforehand: wherefore this is mentioned among the signs of Jerusalem's destruction, "men's hearts failing them for fear", Luke 21:26.

(f) "significat vaporem", Vatablus, Mercerus, Amama.

Geneva Study Bible

I also will {t} laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

(t) This is spoken according to our capacity signifying that the wicked, who mock and jest at God's word, will have the just reward of their mocking.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

26. at] Rather, in, i.e. in the time of. Comp. on this verse Psalm 2:4; Psalm 37:13; Psalm 59:8.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 26. - I also will laugh at your calamity; or, more accurately, in the time of your calamity; as in the Vulgate, in interitu vestro ridebo. The preposition prefixed to the substantive b'eyd'chem (בְּאֵידְכֵם) refers to the time, or state, or condition (Gesenius, 'Gram.,' 154, 3). In the time of their calamity wisdom will exult or rejoice. The LXX., Τῇ ὑμετέρᾳ ἀπλείᾳ ἐπιγελάσομαι, however, favours the rendering of the Authorized Version. Calamity (אֵיד, eyd) is heavy overwhelming misfortune, that which oppresses and crushes its victims. The terrific nature of the punishment of the wicked is marked by a succession of terms all of terrible import - calamity, fear, desolation, destruction, distress, and anguish (vers. 26, 27). When these come upon them, then Wisdom will laugh and have them in derision. The verbs "laugh" (שָׂחַק, sakhak) and "mock" (גאאל לָעַג) are the same as in Psalm 2:4, where they are rendered "to mock" and "have in derision." When your fear cometh; i.e. has actually arrived. Fear (פַחַד pakhad); here used metonymically for that which causes the fear or terror (id, quod timebatis, Vulgate). There is a similar use of φόβος in 1 Peter 3:14. Proverbs 1:26

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

שׂחק, as Proverbs 31:25 shows, is not to be understood with בּ; בּ is that of the state or time, not of the object. Regarding איד, calamitas opprimens, obruens (from אוּד equals Arabic âda, to burden, to oppress), see at Psalm 31:12. בא is related to יאתה as arriving to approaching; פחדּכם is not that for which they are in terror - for those who are addressed are in the condition of carnal security - but that which, in the midst of this, will frighten and alarm them. The Chethı̂b שאוה is pointed thus, שׁאוה (from שׁאו equals שׁאה, as ראוה, זעוה after the form אהבה, דּאבה); the Kerı̂ substitutes for this infinitive name the usual particip. שׁאה (where then the Vav is יתיר, "superfluous"), crashing (fem. of שׁאה), then a crash and an overthrow with a crash; regarding its root-meaning (to be waste, and then to sound hollow), see under Psalm 35:8. סוּפה (from סוּף equals ספה), sweeping forth as a (see Proverbs 10:25) whirlwind. The infinitive construction of 27a is continued in 27b in the finite. "This syntactical and logical attraction, by virtue of which a modus or tempus passes by ו or by the mere parallel arrangement (as Proverbs 2:2) from one to another, attracted into the signification and nature of the latter, is peculiar to the Hebr. If there follows a new clause or section of a clause where the discourse takes, as it were, a new departure, that attraction ceases, and the original form of expression is resumed; cf. 1:22, where after the accent Athnach the future is returned to, as here in 27c the infinitive construction is restored" (Fl.). The alliterating words צרה וצוּקה, cf. Isaiah 30:6; Zephaniah 1:15, are related to each other as narrowness and distress (Hitzig); the Mashal is fond of the stave-rhyme.

(Note: Jul. Ley, in his work on the Metrical Forms of Hebrew Poetry, 1866, has taken too little notice of these frequently occurring alliteration staves; Lagarde communicated to me (8th Sept. 1846) his view of the stave-rhyme in the Book of Proverbs, with the remark, "Only the Hebr. technical poetry is preserved to us in the O.T. records; but in such traces as are found of the stave-rhyme, there are seen the echoes of the poetry of the people, or notes passing over from it.")