Saying Twenty

Proverbs 24:1-2

Do not be envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them; for their heart devises violence, and their lips talk of troublemaking.

Stop trying to outshine Sodom.

It is significant that three of the Thirty Sayings — ten percent — contain the advice “don’t be jealous of bad guys”:

1. Saying Fifteen — “Do not let your heart envy sinners” (Prov 23:17).

2. Saying Twenty — “Do not be envious of evil men” (Prov 24:1).

3. Saying Twenty-Nine — “Do not… be envious of the wicked” (Prov 24:19).

In each case, the commandment is not to “envy”, using the root word qanaʾ. However, the object of envy in each case is slightly different:

1. In Saying Fifteen, it is “sinners”, or chattaʾim. These are sinners in the 1 John 3:8-9 sense: children of the devil who live lives of habitual folly.

2. In Saying Twenty, it is “evil men”, or raꜥah ʾanshe. By adding the word “men”, the focus of the text seems to be on a group of people plotting explicitly despicable acts. A criminal gang would be an extreme example.

3. In Saying Twenty-Nine, it is “the wicked”, or mereꜥim. Unlike Saying Twenty, the focus is on individuals who sin, rather than groups.

These distinctions are necessary so that we do not accuse Solomon of repeating himself. He wrote Thirty Sayings, not Twenty-Eight with a couple of repeats; and whilst his editor may have pointed the scissors at Sayings Twenty and Twenty-Nine — ‘couldn’t he just combine them’ — the wisest man to ever live had good reason for differentiating the three.

Saying Twenty, unlike Fifteen and Twenty-Nine, addresses the uniquely social aspect of envying the wicked. Back in the day — the 900s BC, to be precise — Solomon did not coin the term FOMO, or whatever its Hebrew equivalent might have been. However, this saying confirms he was well acquainted with the concept. It tackles the anxious discontentment that often claims the hearts of poorly-adjusted Christians insecure about how boring they are. Casting side-eyed glances at all the flashing lights and fake-tanned skin, they begin to ask questions like ‘What if our church had a rollercoaster?’ and ‘What if our pastor were a woman?’

Christians who jump on the slippery slope of cultural capitulation may not see themselves as directly “envying evil men”. To their mind, they are simply copying the mega-church that meets up in the big smoke. If they can do it, why can’t we? What they do not realise is that the said mega-church copied another church that copied a movement that copied a celebrity who copied evil men.

Tracing cultural capitulation far enough back invariably reveals its rotten root: envy of evil men. A wise man can cut past the steps of removal very quickly. He immediately discerns that the motivating factor behind calls to be ‘less judgmental on abortion’ and ‘more lenient on homosexuality’ is not so-called empathy — which is merely the mask it wears — but a quiet longing to be like the wicked.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” (1 Samuel 8:4-5)

In this case, they said the quiet part out loud: “to judge us like all the nations.” Usually, however, it is said in the heart, because envy is an embarrassing sin, even to sinners. When jealousy undergirds their actions, men and women do not typically like to admit it.

If someone had approached Solomon with the proposition that, for next week’s sermon, ‘why don’t we have the pastor roll in on a rollercoaster?’, he would not have whiteboarded the pros and cons. He would have pointed out that the people you are trying to copy have violent hearts and troublemaking lips (v2). Is it not true that those who desire such perversions of worship tend to be ‘nuanced’ on abortion — the most violent abomination in our culture?

Saying Twenty is refreshingly surgical and delightfully unrepentant in its condemnation of social envy. In obeying the spirit of this proverb, Christian communities must refuse to be swayed by the allure of cultural idiocy. It isn’t ‘new’ or ‘edgy’. It’s violent, mischievous, and — frankly — cringeworthy.

The alternative is boldness with a clean conscience. Churches that refuse to envy evil men will find their strength not in mimicry but maturity. Their men will have sacrificial gravitas; their women dignified radiance. They will not out-entertain the world; they’ll outgrow it. They’ll outlast it. When the world has killed all of its children, faithful churches will have busfuls of their own ready to rebuild the culture of the next generation.

Scriptures for Comparison

Romans 12:2

James 3:14-16

Matthew 6:1-2

Psalm 37:1-2

Psalm 73:2-3

John 15:18-19

Deuteronomy 18:9

Jeremiah 10:2

Malachi 3:18