Saying Twenty-Eight

Proverbs 24:17-18

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the Lord see it, and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him.

You’re a sinner too, moron.

One or more of the following vignettes may sting.

Politics: Your least-favourite politician is publicly exposed in a case of fraud. You screenshot his fearful expression at the moment of arrest and send it far and wide, chortling openly at his pain.

Romance: You hear about a previous partner’s fresh breakup. Instead of compassion, you feel a clean hit of satisfaction and linger on her pain like a victory lap.

On the Road: The driver who cut you off gets pulled over minutes later. You slow down to grin and clap as you pass, savouring his haunted countenance.

Workplace: The colleague who undermined you is laid off. The next day you see his urgent appeal for financial aid on a community noticeboard and laugh sardonically.

Online: An influencer who used his larger platform to mock Christians is cancelled. You join his Rumble livestream just to hate-watch and laugh at his tears.

There are few Christians who could read Saying Twenty-Eight without taking several hearty pricks to the conscience. And while many of these come genuinely from the Spirit himself, many others may be unnecessary, being derived from erroneous pietism. Scripture seems to walk a fine line between two ditches: rejoicing at the downfall of enemies and failing to be emotionally invested in vengeance against sin. The proverb is rightly understood as prohibiting the former, but is easily misread as commanding the latter — a mistake that would indict much of the language of Psalms, and even implicate Solomon in self-contradiction.

The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance; He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

Psalm 58:10

When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices; And when the wicked perish, there is jubilation.

Proverbs 11:10

Another poetically minded man once expressed the profundity of his thoughts thusly:

Well I believe in Jesus
And what he said he’s gonna do
He’ll put an apple in your lyin’ mouth
And cook you in a sulfur stew
One that’ll never be through
Is it soup yet? No
…
What a great feelin’ I have
When I think of how you’re gonna get yours
At the end of the world

Despite appearances, these men — David, Solomon, and, yes, Keith Green — were not disobeying the principle of Saying Twenty-Eight, and it is important to discern why.

There are three facts on the ground that allow us to square the scriptures mentioned — and having done so, justify the content of Green’s Dear John Letter (To the Devil).

1. David rejoices at the “vengeance” of God (Psa 58:10).

2. Solomon encourages “jubilation” at the congruency between character (“wicked”) and outcome (“perish”) (Prov 11:10).

3. Neither text expresses joy at the personal suffering of one of God’s creatures.

It is this anti-creational mutilation of joy — joy at the fallenness of the created order — that God prohibits. If you observe your enemy in the distance, swanking away with reckless abandon, you may justly be appalled at his perversion of creational norms (if he is indeed perverting them). Suppose, however, that two minutes later, a providential tree branch lands beautifully on his noggin. Despite the fact that it was providential (in the sense that all things are), and despite the fact that it landed so exquisitely on the ugly scalp of your enemy, you have no right to rejoice in his pain because pain is anti-creational (Rev 21:4).

On the other hand, suppose the scene drew no squeal of joy from your lips, but rather plunged you into a state of somber reflection. Later that week, you discover that your enemy’s business, which had been steadily ruining the economic future of the small town you share, has gone bankrupt due to the incapacity of its proprietor.

Given the circumstances, you are justified in celebrating the vengeance of God and the congruency between your enemy’s character and the outcome that fell upon his head — both literally and figuratively. You are not revelling in his pain; you are not being sadistic; you are rejoicing in the restoration of a creational norm; you are cheering on the blessings of a just God.

Having made these distinctions clear, we may proceed to a bold and necessary task: defending the words of that masterpiece, Dear John Letter (To the Devil). Note that, in the song, Green does not gloat over the Devil’s pain, but in “what Jesus said he’s gonna do” — namely, vindicate God’s justice, and humiliate the powers of evil. As such, the piece does not revel in anti-creational sadism, but creational justice. It mocks what God mocks.

There is another, deeper reason why rejoicing at the pain of your enemy is abhorrent. When a believer delights not in the vindication of God’s justice but in the spectacle of another’s misery, he has ceased to rejoice in righteousness and has begun to exalt himself. His laughter at another’s fall is a form of practical atheism — he has forgotten that he too stands beneath the same holy gaze. He also, but for the grace of God, is a moronic sinner.

Paul’s words to the Romans expose this posture:

Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.

Romans 11:20-21

The apostle is warning not to interpret the downfall of another as evidence of your superiority, but as a sober reminder of the justice that would be yours apart from grace. When you gloat over the ruin of the wicked merely because you enjoy the ruin, you have inverted the meaning of divine judgement — you have made yourself the measure of righteousness. You are not rejoicing in the holiness of God; you are simply worshipping your own perceived moral opulence.

Any joy expressed in the downfall of evil must, therefore, be tempered by fear — a reverent awareness that apart from Christ’s atonement, we all stand equally condemned.

Scriptures for Comparison

Proverbs 17:5

Job 31:29-30

Obadiah 12

Micah 7:8

Proverbs 25:21-22

Matthew 5:44-45

Romans 12:17-21

Ezekiel 33:11

1 Corinthians 13:6

Galatians 6:1

1 Corinthians 10:12

Romans 11:20-21