When Your Enemy Falls – Proverbs 24:17-18

In the United States we just finished a presidential election.  Did your choice for president win or lose?  Do we rejoice at the stumbling of someone we don’t want to win or succeed?  Do we hope for the winner to stumble?  What does God think of that?

 Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the LORD see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him. (Proverbs 24:17–18, ESV)

You’ve felt it.  I’ve felt it.  Satisfaction when someone who was against us ends up getting their just deserts.  It vindicates us and removes them as an irritant from our lives.

But the wise man is warning us not to rejoice in this moment.  Is this the Old Testament version of ‘love your enemy’?  I think so.  It could definitely be saying that God’s justice should rest with God and not us and that our rejoicing might be viewed as in some way trying to add punishment to what Yahweh has meted out.  That would displease Yahweh and He may thus relent and not give the enemy full punishment.

Yet being glad when our enemy stumbles would not necessarily add penalty to our enemy as much as reveal that we feel we are better than our enemy and do not really care for him or her as someone made in Yahweh’s image.  That is what really matters to Yahweh.  “Love your neighbor as yourself” we are taught in Leviticus 19:18.  And Jesus interprets neighbor for us as including anyone who needs our help or love.

David was fleeing Saul, who was trying to kill him and prevent him from getting the throne in place of his son Jonathan.  Twice David had the opportunity to kill Saul and did not take it.  He loved the man who was trying to kill him and longed for a reconciliation, which Saul could not provide.  When Saul was killed in battle David mourned.  Our enemy is our neighbor.  Jesus rightly understood the Law and wisdom to be teaching us to love our enemies.  This proverb is part of the evidence for that.