The poor use entreaties, but the rich answer roughly.
Above all else, men desire to be rulers of themselves. This statement holds for the righteous and the wicked- except that these two understand rulership in very different ways. The righteous man would rule himself in stewardship, honoring and following God with all at his disposal, not abdicating himself or his gifts to any. The wicked man, meanwhile, would rule himself absolutely, 1 without reference to God or need to rely on Him, in inveterate denial of His relevance (Ps. 53:1). Sometimes, paradoxically, this total self-possession is achieved by submitting oneself to another outside God, in defiance of proper authority. These two visions of completeness make all the difference.
The tool by which a man makes himself into a pretense of autonomy is power. This proverb addresses the use of that power over other men. The poor man has little direct power; he must resort to pulling on pity, on manipulation. (Not that the entreaties here mentioned are necessarily wrong; this proverb does not condemn entreaties. No, it shows a difference between men, enlightening us to man’s basic nature by showing how change in circumstance elicits a change in action.) The rich man, whether by virtue of his wealth or by the method of accumulating it, has greater power; he can induce men by fear or greed to do much. So he speaks roughly, even to the poor man’s entreaties, because he need not hide his disdain and discomfiture. His power makes him independent of other authority, he thinks, and so he displays the ‘authority’ his power gives him, declaring himself against God.
‘Declaration’ is the nature of such vice. No man is ever truly independent of God; none escape His decree (Is. 10:22-23) or His wrath (13:9) (except from wrath by mercy (Is. 11:11)). The wicked man, therefore, displays independence precisely because he has it not and knows he has it not (Rom 1:18-20). He proclaims loudly, as if to make real, and though he succeeds not a whit, he makes a great racket, making a mockery of himself in his attempt to spurn God (Ps. 14:1-3; Ps. 2). Then, knowing his own inability to escape God, he finds himself under the influence, chosen or unchosen, of another man, another philosophy, another circumstance, under the power and the false authority of the creature.
The wicked man, therefore, pretends himself independent of God’s sovereignty; he pretends that he can impose his own order, moral and practical, upon the world. This new order, local to him or (more commonly) spread around him or (in the ambitious) imposed on the world, this new order is invariably vicious and mutable, tending ever more towards its tyrant’s peculiar vices, in proportion to his opportunity and propensity for those vices. We see this most clearly on a civilizational scale, in the slide from one vice to another and deeper sin, but we all know from experience that small sins are the seeds of larger transgressions, in ourselves and in others (Luk. 16:10).
The righteous man rules in another way and for another purpose. The righteous man, one who trusts God and hates evil (Job 1:1), is of a “royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9). As such, as part of his dominion by nature (Gen. 1:28, 9:1, 9:7), as part of his duty as an imitator of Christ (Col. 1:16; Eph. 5:1), the son of God rules as a servant of God. He stewards God’s creation not in order to wrest it from God’s hands and dominion but to use it according to His command, His decree, His glory.
The fruit of these two shares hardly even superficial sameness. The wicked man’s work fruits into tyranny, misuse, abuse, into waste and cruelty, into malfunction and viciousness. The righteous man, meanwhile, insofar as he is righteous and insofar as God preserves him from the workers of iniquity (for on this earth, God sometimes wills to have righteousness come to what is apparently ruin, though far from it in the eternal view), thus far the righteous man produces beauty and prosperity, brings forth that which raises men higher in joy and in Him (which are two parts of the same blessing).
God bless.
1 – This reference is definitely necessary.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Colson Potter writes copious fiction and nonfiction, including a weekly Proverbs post and his blog at Creational Story.
