How We Got Proverbs 24:19-20

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Fret not yourself because of evildoers, and be not envious of the wicked, ²⁰ for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out. -Proverbs 24:19-20

One of my favorite psalms is Psalm 73. It’s a psalm of Asaph and he expresses the frustration that many of us feel at times. Asaph has been doing his best to follow God and it doesn’t seem like he’s getting anything out of it. He’s looking at those promises of Deuteronomy and saying, “Lord, it feels like the opposite is happening. The unrighteous are being blessed and I’m wallowing in the mud. What gives?”

The way the psalm flows is also interesting. It starts with exuberant praise and then in verse 3 it’s like he hits a wall. He takes a glance at the wicked and he doesn’t see misery—he sees a shining face. And it rocks his worldview. Ever been there--where, unasked for, a flood of doubt and discouragement and questions flood your soul?

You can see the climax of Asaph’s complaint in verses 13-14. “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.” It’s as if Asaph is saying, “Following after the Lord has been pointless, i’s gotten me nowhere”. He looks at his suffering. The way he feels every morning. The conviction he feels when he sins. The fact that his cup is dry and he’s scraping away in this life. He fixates on his suffering (turning a blind eye to everything good) and then stares with a glimmering eye at the prosperity of the wicked.

Asaph has likely been next to people when they die. He sees their agony. Followers YHWH die just like the wicked. “Well, that’s not even entirely true”, thinks Asaph. It seems like they die without pain. A wicked dude lives to be 95 cursing God and man until the day he dies—peacefully in his sleep. A loving mom, four kids, a whole life ahead of her suffers with cancer for years until she dies at the age of 38. “That’s not what Deuteronomy promises,” is what Asaph struggles with.

He looks at their bodies “fat and sleek”. (That was a good thing back then, it meant they didn’t miss a meal). He’s looking at his table scraps, his empty bowl, or maybe even he was provided for but it was the same thing over and over again. It wasn’t luxury. It wasn’t the choicest of foods. He was eating bologna sandwiches and he looks over and sees the wicked guy feasting on prime rib. “I want the prime rib”. Why can’t I have the prime rib?

His life is filled with trouble. Can you imagine the insecurity of living as a Jew in this time? Are my people going to be driven away? Which king are we serving this week? There isn’t stability. It’s trouble all the day long. He doesn’t have freedom. He doesn’t have luxury. He has trouble. And he looks over at the wicked—the God-hating wicked that doesn’t keep his way clean—and what he sees is that they are stricken like the rest of mankind. They are living it up. Every day looks to be more joyous than the next.

He sums it up in verse 12. They are always at ease and increasing in riches. “It sure doesn’t sounds like the Lord is opposing the proud, does it”, Asaph brutishly questions? He’s envious of all the stuff they’ve got. He’s envious of these arrogant fools. And that’s why he says in verse 13 and 14 I’ve done all this for nothing. I’ve followed the Lord faithfully all these years. I’ve been the humble one and I haven’t gotten grace—I’ve been stricken and rebuked every morning.

It's easy to rebuke Asaph from afar. Until you’ve been in his shoes. What do we do in these moments? Asaph had all these feelings—brutish and ignorant thoughts he’d say (verse 22). His soul was embittered. That’s what happens when we have a laser like focus upon our suffering and then an undiscerning eye to all the “blessings” of others. Asaph says in verse 16 that he couldn’t square all this up. It was too many knots. It seemed like God betrayed him—that God wasn’t faithful to his word. His faith was collapsing.

But there is an amazing picture of God’s restraining grace here. Asaph says, “If I had said, ‘I will speak thus’, I would have betrayed the generation of your children.” To use contemporary terms, Asaph was in a stage of deconstruction. And he was offered a book deal. He was a well-known musician in his day. He could have written a great psalm about how God let him down. And—because we’re prone to view things with wrong eyes and we do often live in disappointment—he’d have found a ready audience. But Asaph kept quiet.

Let’s notice something else here. Who was that “generation of your children”? Asaph was a contemporary of King David. Likely, one of the musicians hanging around the palace. Yes, the same palace where young Solomon would have been. What if Asaph would have “popped off” and given full vent to his thoughts about how unfair God was to him? According to Asaph it would have betrayed a generation. He’d have planted seeds in the mind of young Solomon. But he kept his mouth shut…at least until there was some measure of healing.

Then he spoke.

Asaph was held up by God. And in that moment when all of his questions and doubt flooded him—when he was honest with all of it—God met him there. God took him on a walk. He showed the glory that awaits him. Yes, those promises of Deuteronomy are true. The suffering isn’t the end of the story. Their joy at present is all they have. And some day even that will stand in judgment against them. God’s kindness didn’t lead them to repentance but to further rebellion.

Asaph got a new set of eyes. And when he did, he sat down and wrote Psalm 73. A psalm of lament—but not entirely. It’s more a psalm of honest reflection. It’s a psalm written after lament. A psalm for when brokenness and doubt chokes you out—but somehow God’s gracious hand rescues you and holds you up in the storm.

And that’s why we have Proverbs 24:19-20. Because Asaph didn’t speak a half-truth when he was embittered. We have that proverb because Asaph sat in lament, refusing the book deal, until the gospel broke through. And when it did, he left something for generations to come. A psalm that is honest about our discouragement. A psalm that is honest about how our strength and our heart may fail—but we’re ultimately held up by a good God. A psalm that encourages us to not only press into and be honest with the doubt—but to let the full story breakthrough.

It isn’t truly authentic unless it’s infused with the good news of God’s rescue.