The word “suddenly” shows the vanity of the sinner’s hope that he shall have the time or the gift of repentance (Job. xxi. 17, 18; Psa. lxiii. 19).—Fausset.
It were pity such a villain should go without his reward. The wise man, therefore, doth not leave him without his judgment denounced, and it is a grievous one. For he that spendeth time to devise mischief shall not have time at last to devise help for the preventing of his own sudden mischief. He that by plots maketh the breaches of strife, shall at length be broken suddenly into pieces, without hope of piecing himself together again. . . . Of Satan it is said that he fell like lightning from heaven, the fall whereof is most sudden, and so that it never riseth again. And so cometh the calamity of malicious, froward hearts: such is the breaking fall of their destruction.—Jermin.
Verse 16. This, curtly, is a restatement of the picture just passed; not exactly, but ripened a little, and advanced into a more mature expression.—Miller.
It is an evidence of the good-will God bears to mankind, that those sins are in a special manner provoking to Him which are prejudicial to the comfort of human life and society.—Henry.
The things which God hateth are the things which the devil maketh. He cannot be the author and hater of the same thing. And therefore it is not man, but the wicked things in man, which God abhorreth, and which, did not man love, God would still love man, although He hateth them.—Jermin.
Verse 17. A proud look or “lofty eyes” might seem to have little to do with a “worthless man” (see [Critical Notes] on verse 12), but a man is a man of emptiness solely because he is depending, in divers ways, upon himself. Humility is the very first lesson towards salvation. A man could not live a whole long life taking “a little more sleep” if he was not arrogantly depending upon something within himself. “Hands that shed innocent blood:” The movements of such a man are all deadly. The amiable may be fairly stung by such rude speech, but the wise man intends to imply that a deceived impenitence deceives and festers all about it. The worldly father that misguides his son sheds his blood. It is astonishing how much there is in the Bible of this cruel language (Psa. v. 9; Isa. i. 21, &c.).—Miller.
Verse 18. The heart underlies the seven vices which are an abomination to God, and in the midst, because it is the fountain from which evil flows in all directions.—Starke.
Verse 19. If the heavenly “dew descends upon the brethren that dwell together in unity” (Psa. cxxxiii.), a withering blast will fall on those who, mistaking prejudice for principle, “cause divisions” for their own selfish ends (Rom. xvi. 17, 18). If we cannot attain unity of opinion, “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor. i. 10), at least let us cultivate unity of Spirit (Phil. iii. 16).—Bridges.
Verses 12–19. As respects the arrangement in which the seven manifestations of treacherous dealing are enumerated in verses 16–19, it does not perfectly correspond with the order observed in verses 12–14. There the series is—mouth, eyes, feet, fingers, heart, devising evil counsels, stirring up strifes; here it is eyes, tongue, hands, heart, feet, speaking lies, instigating strife. With reference to the organs which are named as the instruments in the first five forms of treacherous wickedness, in the second enumeration an order is adopted involving a regular descent; the base disposition to stir up strife, or to let loose controversy in both cases ends the series. . . . The six or seven vices, twice enumerated in different order and form of expression, are, at the same time, all of them manifestations of hatred against one’s neighbour, or sins against the second table of the Decalogue; yet it is not so much a general unkindness as rather an unkindness consisting and displaying itself in falseness and malice that is emphasised as their common element. And only on account of the peculiarly mischievous and ruinous character of just these sins of hatred to one’s neighbour, is he who is subject to them represented as an object of especially intense abhorrence on the part of a holy God, and as threatened with the strongest manifestations of His anger in penalties.—Dr. Zöckler, in Lange’s Commentary.
Verses 16–19. There is one parallel well worthy of notice between the seven cursed things here and the seven blessed things in the fifth chapter of Matthew. In the Old Testament the things are set down in the sterner form of what the Lord hates, like the “Thou shalt not” of the Decalogue. In the New Testament the form is in accordance with the gentleness of Christ. There we learn the good things that are blessed, and are left to gather thence the opposite evils that are cursed. But, making allowance for the difference in form, the first and the last of the seven are identical in the two lists. “The Lord hates a proud look” is precisely equivalent to “Blessed are the poor in spirit;” and “He that soweth discord among brethren” is the exact converse of the “peacemaker.” The coincidence must be designed. When Jesus was teaching His disciples on the Mount He seems to have had in view the similar instructions that Solomon had formerly delivered, and, while the teaching is substantially new, there is as much of allusion to the ancient Scripture as to make it manifest that the Great Teacher kept His eye upon the prophets, and sanctioned all their testimony.—Arnot.