Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Wicked Flee When No One Pursues
Proverbs 28:1-14
1 The wicked flee when no one pursues; but the righteous are as bold as a lion. · WEB
The chapter opens on a guilty man running from nobody and reaches the book's clearest statement about confessing what you have done.
The wicked flee when no one pursues; but the righteous are as bold as a lion. Nothing is happening in the first half of that verse. There is no pursuer. What the man is fleeing is his own record. The collection treats the flight as evidence rather than as cowardice. The contrast is not courage against fear, but a clear account against a bad one.
The law is named repeatedly through this chapter, which is unusual for the collections. Those who forsake the law praise the wicked; but those who keep the law contend with them. Praising and contending are the two available responses to wrongdoing. A man's relation to the law is said to decide which he offers. And the strongest form of it: He who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination. A man who will not listen is described as unable to be heard. That is the same reciprocity the book applied to the cry of the poor Proverbs 21:13.
Money appears in two verses that are unusually specific about mechanism. A needy man who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain which leaves no crops — a poor man squeezing those below him, compared to the rain that should have fed the field and instead washed it away. And interest: He who increases his wealth by excessive interest gathers it for one who has pity on the poor. The lender is described as unknowingly collecting on somebody else's behalf.
One verse names an advantage that does not usually count as one: The rich man is wise in his own eyes; but the poor who has understanding sees through him. The poor man's position gives him a view the rich man does not have of himself.
And the chapter contains the book's plainest statement about guilt: He who conceals his sins doesn't prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy. Two verbs are required and the second is the one usually dropped. Confessing names it. Renouncing stops it. What is promised is not merely relief but mercy, and it is the nearest thing in Proverbs to the language of the psalms about forgiveness Psalms 32:5.
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