For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. Psalm 73:3-5
The prosperity and outward peace of wicked men is a source of dismay to many. Even the psalmist was led to envy the lot of the foolish after noticing that the wicked were not ‘in trouble’ or ‘plagued’ as other men. Financial hardships, ill heath, and other undesirable circumstances were comparably absent from their lives. The psalmist also marvelled that ‘there are no bands in their death’. The word translated as ‘bands’ equates to ‘fetters’. This imagery suggests that the deaths of evildoers are often without constraining pain or mental anguish.
The psalmist then compared the favourable lot of the wicked with his own troubled life, and said in his heart:
Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.
For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. Psalm 73:13-14
Yet as the psalmist later relays, the comparatively smooth sailing of the wicked, and the ease at which they may pass from this world, is not something to envy. Ill circumstances do not always plague the wicked, not because they are blessed, but because they are cursed. Knowing that plague or trouble will not instruct a wicked man, God leaves him to treasure ‘up unto [himself] wrath against the day of wrath’ (Romans 2:5). Having despised God’s reproof, the consciences of the wicked become ‘seared with a hot iron’ (1 Timothy 4:2). As death approaches them, God does not chasten them with pain or remorse. Satan likewise doesn’t assail them with doubts concerning their standing with God, as he knows that he has them securely snared. Such may pass away peacefully, with little thought of the hereafter. But the truth is that their general ease and prosperity is the very thing that sets them ‘in slippery places’, and as in a moment, God ‘castedst them down into destruction’ (Psalm 73:17-18).
By contrast, he who is conscientious is often ‘chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain’ as he approaches his end. Such afflictions, however severe, are light compared to the terrors awaiting the wicked at the judgment. Therefore, through whatever means necessary, our loving Heavenly Father seeks to ‘deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light’ (Job 33:19,28).
My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction:
For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. Proverbs 3:11-12
Christopher Sparks