(29) Judgments are prepared for scorners.--(Comp. Proverbs 19:25.)

Fools.--See above on Proverbs 1:22.

Verse 29. - Judgments are prepared for scorners (see on ver. 25). The judgments here are those inflicted by the providence of God, as in Proverbs 3:34. Scorners may deride and affect to scorn the judgments of God and man, but they are warned that retribution awaits them. And stripes for the back of fools; Vulgate, Et mallei percutientes stultorum corporibus (comp. Proverbs 10:13: 26:3). We had the word here rendered "stripes" (מַהַלוּמות mahalumoth) in Proverbs 18:6. The certainty of punishment in the case of transgressors is a truth often insisted on even by heathens. Examples will occur to all readers, from the old Greek oracle, Οὐδεὶς ἀνθρώπων ἀδικῶν τίσιν οὐκ ἀποτίσει, to Horace's "Raro antecedentem scelestum," etc. (See on Proverbs 20:30, where, however, the punishment is of human infliction.)

19:29. The unbelief of man shall not make God's threatenings of no effect. Christ himself, when bearing sins not his own, was not spared. Justice and judgment took hold of our blessed Surety; and will God spare obstinate sinners?Judgments are prepared for scorners,.... Either by the civil magistrate, or by the Lord, and indeed by both; and if they miss the one, they will certainly meet the other; though they mock at present punishment and a future judgment, yet everlasting fire is prepared for them, Matthew 25:41;

and stripes for the back of fools; as scorners are; which shall be inflicted on them sooner or later; if they are not stricken with the stripes of men, they shall endure the strokes of divine justice and vengeance hereafter.