Proverbs 2:21

For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(21) The upright shall dwell in the land—i.e., of Canaan, according to the old promise made to Abraham, renewed in the fifth commandment, and constantly repeated in the prophets.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:10-22 If we are truly wise, we shall be careful to avoid all evil company and evil practices. When wisdom has dominion over us, then it not only fills the head, but enters into the heart, and will preserve, both against corruptions within and temptations without. The ways of sin are ways of darkness, uncomfortable and unsafe: what fools are those who leave the plain, pleasant, lightsome paths of uprightness, to walk in such ways! They take pleasure in sin; both in committing it, and in seeing others commit it. Every wise man will shun such company. True wisdom will also preserve from those who lead to fleshly lusts, which defile the body, that living temple, and war against the soul. These are evils which excite the sorrow of every serious mind, and cause every reflecting parent to look upon his children with anxiety, lest they should be entangled in such fatal snares. Let the sufferings of others be our warnings. Our Lord Jesus deters from sinful pleasures, by the everlasting torments which follow them. It is very rare that any who are caught in this snare of the devil, recover themselves; so much is the heart hardened, and the mind blinded, by the deceitfulness of this sin. Many think that this caution, besides the literal sense, is to be understood as a caution against idolatry, and subjecting the soul to the body, by seeking any forbidden object. The righteous must leave the earth as well as the wicked; but the earth is a very different thing to them. To the wicked it is all the heaven they ever shall have; to the righteous it is the place of preparation for heaven. And is it all one to us, whether we share with the wicked in the miseries of their latter end, or share those everlasting joys that shall crown believers?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Noticeable here is the Hebrew love of home and love of country. To "dwell in the land" is (compare Exodus 20:12; Leviticus 25:18, etc.) the highest blessing for the whole people and for individual men. contrast with it is the life of the sinner cut off from the land (not "earth") of his fathers.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

21, 22. (Compare Ps 37:3, 9, 22, 27).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Shall have a peaceable and comfortable abode in the land of Canaan, which also is a type of their everlasting felicity. See Psalm 37:3,9,18,29.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the upright shall dwell in the land,.... Such as are upright in heart, who have a right spirit renewed in them; whose hearts are right with God, have the truth of grace in them; whose faith is unfeigned, their love without dissimulation, and their hope without hypocrisy; and who are upright in their lives and conversations; these being Israelites according to the flesh, as well as Israelites indeed in a spiritual sense, shall dwell in the land of Canaan, which the Lord promised to such, and which good men enjoyed by virtue of it: or the sense is, that such shall dwell peaceably and quietly in the world, and possess the good things of it, though in a small quantity, in such a comfortable manner, with the love of God and a sense of it, as wicked men do not; or else they shall inhabit the world to come, as Jarchi interprets it; not only a future state of happiness in heaven, but the Messiah's kingdom on earth, the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, 2 Peter 3:13;

and the perfect shall remain in it; or "be left in it" (a); or shall be "strengthened" (b), confirmed, and established in it; or they shall dwell in it as a tent or tabernacle, bound with strong cords; see Isaiah 33:20; or continue there, when others should have no place in it, as follows. By the "perfect" are meant such as have all grace seminally implanted in them, though it is not come up to maturity; who have a perfection of parts, but not of degrees; are properly men in Christ, though they are not arrived to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ; are perfectly holy in Christ, though not in themselves; and are perfectly justified by his righteousness, and perfectly comely through his comeliness, though as yet imperfect in themselves; and those that shall dwell in the new heavens and new earth, and remain there a thousand years, shall be entirely perfect in soul and body, wholly without sin; and complete in knowledge, holiness, and peace: the Targum renders it, who are "without spot", undefiled persons; such who are not defiled with women, with the strange woman before mentioned; whose garments are not defiled, and who are free from the pollution of false doctrine, will worship, superstition, and idolatry, Revelation 3:4.

(a) "superstites erunt", Tigurine version, Mercerus; "superstitabunt", Cocceius; "reliqui fient", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "relinquentur", Michaelis. (b) "Nervabuntur", Schultens.

Geneva Study Bible

For the upright shall dwell in the {o} land, and the perfect shall remain in it.

(o) They will enjoy the temporal and spiritual promises of God, as the wicked will be void of them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21, 22. land … earth] The Heb. word is the same, and should have the same rendering, either land or earth, in both verses. To a Jew this would of course mean “the land which the Lord, thy God, giveth thee” (Exodus 20:12; comp. Psalms 37 passim); but in a Book, the colouring of which is not Jewish, but which addresses itself to all mankind, it is open to us to render, earth, with R.V. marg. See Proverbs 11:31.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 21. - For the upright shall dwell in the land. Much the same language is met with in Psalm 37:29, "The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever." It is the secure and peaceful dwelling in the land which is intended (cf. Proverbs 10:30). To dwell in the land was always put forward as the reward of obedience to God's commandments (see Exodus 20:12; Leviticus 25:18; Leviticus 26:5), and the phrase conveyed to the Hebrew mind the idea of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of all temporal blessings. The love of country was a predominant characteristic of the race. Elster, quoted by Zockler, remarks, "The Israelite was beyond the power of natural feeling, which makes home dear to every one, more closely bound to the ancestral soil by the whole form of the theocracy; torn kern it, he was in the inmost roots of life strained and broken. Especially from psalms belonging to the period of the exile this patriotic feeling is breathed out in the fullest glow and intensity." The land (אָרֶצ arets) was the promised land, the land of Canaan. The word is not used here in the wider sense in which it occurs in Matthew 5:5, "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." And the perfect shall remain in it; i.e. they shall not, as Rabbi Levi remarks, be driven thence nor caused to migrate. The perfect (תְמִימִים th'mimim), the holy (LXX., ὅσιοι), the spotless (immaeulati, Targum), those without a staid (qui sine labe, Syriae), the guileless (simplices, Vulgate). Shall remain; יִוָּתְרוּ (yivrath'ru), niph. future of יָתַר (yathar), properly "to be redundant," and in the niph. form, "to be left," or "to remain." LXX., ὑπολειφθήσαντι "shall remain;" permanebunt, Vulgate. Proverbs 2:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With למען there commences a new section, coordinating itself with the להצּילך ("to deliver thee") of Proverbs 2:12, Proverbs 2:16, unfolding that which wisdom accomplishes as a preserver and guide:

20 So that thou walkest in the good way,

     And keepest the right paths.

21 For the upright shall inhabit the land,

     And the innocent shall remain in it.

22 But the godless are cut off out the land,

     And the faithless are rooted out of it.

Wisdom - thus the connection - will keep thee, so that thou shalt not fall under the seductions of man or of woman; keep, in order that thou... למען (from מען equals מענה, tendency, purpose) refers to the intention and object of the protecting wisdom. To the two negative designations of design there follows, as the third and last, a positive one. טובים (contrast to רעים, Proverbs 14:19) is here used in a general ethical sense: the good (Guten, not Gtigen, the kind). שׁמר, with the object of the way, may in another connection also mean to keep oneself from, cavere ab (Psalm 17:4); here it means: carefully to keep in it. The promise of Proverbs 2:21 is the same as in the Mashal Psalm 37:9, Psalm 37:11, Psalm 37:22; cf. Proverbs 10:30. ארץ is Canaan, or the land which God promised to the patriarchs, and in which He planted Israel, whom He had brought out of Egypt; not the earth, as Matthew 5:5, according to the extended, unlimited N.T. circle of vision. יוּתרוּ (Milel) is erroneously explained by Schultens: funiculis bene firmis irroborabunt in terra. The verb יתר, Arab. watar, signifies to yoke (whence יתר, a cord, rope), then intrans. to be stretched out in length, to be hanging over (vid., Fleischer on Job 30:11); whence יתר, residue, Zephaniah 2:9, and after which the lxx here renders ὑπολειφθήσονται, and Jerome permanebunt. In 22b the old translators render יסּחוּ as the fut. of the pass. נסּח, Deuteronomy 28:63; but in this case it would be ינּסחוּ. The form יסּחוּ, pointed יסּחוּ, might be the Niph. of סחח, but סחח can neither be taken as one with נסח, of the same meaning, nor with Hitzig is it to be vocalized יסּחוּ (Hoph. of נסח); nor, with Bttcher (1100, p. 453), is יסּחוּ to be regarded as a veritable fut. Niph. יסּחוּ is, as at Proverbs 15:25; Psalm 52:7, active: evellant; and this, with the subj. remaining indefinite (for which J. H. Michaelis refers to Hosea 12:9), is equivalent to evellentur. This indefinite "they" or "one" ("man"), Fleischer remarks, can even be used of God, as here and Job 7:3 - a thing which is common in Persian, where e.g., the expression rendered hominem ex pulvere fecerunt is used instead of the fuller form, which would be rendered homo a Deo ex pulvere factus est. בּוגדים bears (as בּגד proves) the primary meaning of concealed, i.e., malicious (treacherous and rapacious, Isaiah 33:1), and then faithless men.

(Note: Similar is the relation in Arab. of labbasa to libâs (לבוּשׁ); it means to make a thing unknown by covering it; whence telbı̂s, deceit, mulebbis, a falsifier.)