Commentary - Proverbs 17:5

Bird's-eye view

This proverb is a compact couplet that delivers two sharp warnings against arrogance and malice, grounding both prohibitions in the absolute sovereignty of God. The first clause deals with contempt for the poor, and the second with delight in the misfortunes of others. These are not presented as mere social faux pas but as profound theological offenses. To mock a poor man is to level an insult at his Creator, questioning the wisdom and justice of the God who ordains all things, including the stations of men. To rejoice when disaster strikes another is to applaud a tragedy that God has authored for His own holy purposes, revealing a heart that is out of fellowship with the heart of God. In both instances, the sin is vertical before it is horizontal. It is an attack on God's providential ordering of the world, and as the second clause promises, such a malicious spirit will not escape the notice or the righteous judgment of God.

The two lines of the proverb are tightly parallel. Both describe a sinful heart attitude directed at the low estate of another. The first is mockery toward systemic poverty; the second is glee toward sudden calamity. Both sins stem from pride, and both are promised a divine reckoning. The first sin is an insult to God as Creator; the second invites punishment from God as Judge. Together, they form a potent warning against the kind of pride that punches down, whether in scorn or in sick delight.

Outline

Context In Proverbs

The book of Proverbs consistently teaches that our treatment of the poor is a direct reflection of our relationship with God. This verse is a sharp distillation of a recurring theme. For example, Proverbs 14:31 says, "He who oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker, but he who is kind to the needy honors Him." Proverbs 22:2 says, "The rich and the poor have this in common, The LORD is the maker of them all." The wisdom of Proverbs does not sentimentalize poverty, and it has harsh words for the sluggard whose poverty is self-inflicted. But it absolutely forbids contempt for a person's low station. This is because God is the ultimate reality, the sovereign Creator who establishes the order of all things. To despise the order is to despise the one who ordered it. Likewise, Proverbs warns against vindictive joy, as in Proverbs 24:17, "Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles." This verse, then, fits squarely within the book's broader ethical framework, which is thoroughly theocentric. All of life, including our social attitudes and emotional responses, is to be lived in the fear of the Lord.

Key Issues

The Maker's Prerogative

At the root of this proverb is the Creator/creature distinction. God is God, and we are not. He is the potter, and we are the clay. He makes one vessel for honor and another for common use, and He also makes one man rich and another poor. This is His sovereign prerogative. The modern mind, steeped in egalitarianism, chafes at this. We want to believe that all disparities are the result of systemic injustice or sheer random chance. But Scripture teaches that the ultimate reason for the state of the world is the will of God.

This does not absolve men of their responsibility. The Bible condemns oppression that creates poverty, and it commands personal diligence to avoid poverty. But it also recognizes a foundational level of divine sovereignty in the distribution of wealth and station. When a man mocks the poor, he is not simply making a sociological observation. He is, in effect, reviewing God's creative work and giving it a failing grade. He is looking at a man God has made and in whose life God is working, and he is sneering. This is an act of breathtaking arrogance. It is telling the Maker that He botched the job. It is blasphemy in principle, and it is why the offense is so grave.

Verse by Verse Commentary

5a He who mocks the poor reproaches his Maker;

The proverb begins with a specific sin: mocking the poor. This is not the sin of causing poverty, or of neglecting the poor, but of holding the poor in contempt. It is the sneer, the condescending joke, the attitude of superiority that looks at a man in rags and sees only failure, not a fellow image-bearer of God. The reason this is so wicked is located in the second half of the clause. Such mockery is not ultimately directed at the man, but at his Maker. Why? Because God is the one who makes men, and He is the one who makes them poor or rich. As Hannah prayed, "The LORD makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up" (1 Sam. 2:7). To mock the condition is to insult the one who ordained the condition. It is to find fault with God's providence. It is to say, implicitly, "If I were God, I wouldn't have made such a person, or at least I wouldn't have let him get into such a state." This is pride on a cosmic scale. You are setting yourself up as a consultant to the Almighty, offering corrections on His handiwork. This is a fool's game, and a dangerous one.

5b He who is glad at disaster will not go unpunished.

The second clause moves from a state of being (poverty) to an event (disaster). The sin here is a malicious joy at the misfortune of another. The Germans have a word for this: Schadenfreude. It is the ugly little thrill that runs through a man's heart when he hears that his rival's business has failed, or that the neighbor who annoyed him has had a car wreck. This proverb declares that God sees that secret gladness, and He will not let it slide. It will not go unpunished. The reason is the same as in the first clause. God is sovereign over all events, including disasters. "Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?" (Amos 3:6). When God sends calamity, He does so for His own holy reasons, be it judgment on the wicked or chastisement for a wayward saint. To be glad at the disaster is to have a different spirit than God's. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezek. 33:11). He is a righteous judge, but His heart is not filled with glee at the necessity of judgment. The man who rejoices at calamity is delighting in the very thing that is an expression of God's strange work of wrath. He is like a child clapping his hands at a funeral. Such a disposition is perverse, and it reveals a heart that is profoundly alienated from God. Therefore, punishment is not just likely; it is guaranteed.

Application

This proverb forces us to examine our hearts in two very practical areas. First, how do we think about and treat those who are less fortunate than we are? It is very easy for the middle-class Christian to develop a subtle, unspoken contempt for the poor. We might not mock them to their faces, but we do it in our hearts. We see their poverty as a direct result of their bad choices, which it sometimes is, but we fail to see the hand of God's sovereignty that holds all our stations in place. We forget that we have nothing that we did not receive. Our health, our job, our intact family, our functioning car, all of it is a gift. The proper response to seeing poverty is not scorn, but humility and gratitude, followed by biblically-directed mercy. We must see every man, no matter how destitute, as the handiwork of our Maker, and treat him with the dignity that status requires.

Second, we must guard our hearts against the wicked sin of schadenfreude. In our highly polarized age, this is a particularly potent temptation. When a politician we despise gets into trouble, when a celebrity who scoffs at our faith is humiliated, when a rival church has a split, what is the first reaction in our hearts? Is it a sober recognition of the judgment of God, accompanied by a prayer for repentance? Or is it a secret, fist-pumping glee? Do we rush to social media to gloat? To be glad at another's calamity is to align our hearts with the accuser of the brethren, who delights in destruction. The gospel shows us a better way. Christ did not rejoice at our calamity. He saw us in our disastrous, self-inflicted ruin, and He entered into it with us. He took our disaster upon Himself at the cross. The heart that has been shaped by this kind of grace has no room for delighting in the downfall of others. Instead, it weeps with those who weep and trusts the sovereign Judge of all the earth to do right.