3 A man shall not be established by wickedness, but the root of the righteous shall not be moved.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
A man shall not be established by wickedness - Evil is always variable: it has no fixed principle, except the root that is in the human heart; and even that is ever assuming new forms. Nothing is permanent but goodness; and that is unchangeable, because it comes from God. The produce of goodness is permanent, because it has God's blessing in it: the fruit of wickedness, or the property procured by wickedness, is transitory, because it has God's curse in it. The righteous has his root in God; and therefore he shall not be moved.
A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the (a) root of the righteous shall not be moved.
(a) They are so grounded in the favour of God, that their root will prosper continually.
A man shall not be established by wickedness,.... Not any man, though he may be established in his wickedness, so as not to be rooted out of it; yet he cannot be so established by it as not to be removed from a prosperous state and condition into an unhappy and distressed one; he may seem to be in a firm and settled state of prosperity, amidst all his wickedness; be like a green bay tree, spreading itself, and seemingly immovable, when on a sudden it is blown down and rooted up, and is no more: so Babylon will seem to be in a settled state of grandeur, ease, and rest, and say, "I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow"; when in one day, and in one hour, her destruction shall come upon her, Revelation 18:7;
but the root of the righteous shall not be moved; they are rooted and grounded in the love of God, which is immovable; they are rooted and built up in Christ, and so are as Mount Zion, which can never be removed; the root of the matter, or of grace, is in them, which can never be lost; while others wither away, because they have no root in them, these abide; and though they may be shaken with the persecutions of men, the temptations of Satan, the errors of the wicked, and their own corruptions, yet they afresh take root again downward, and bring forth fruit upward.
Though men may advance themselves by sinful arts, they cannot settle and secure themselves. But those who by faith are rooted in Christ, are firmly fixed.
Wickedness cannot give permanent prosperity.
root . . . not be moved--firm as a flourishing tree-- (Psalm 1:3; Psalm 15:5; Jeremiah 17:8).
3 A man does not stand by wickedness,
But the root of the righteous remains unmoved.
In רשׁע there lies the idea of want of inward stay (vid., at Psalm 1:1); in a manner of thought and of conduct which has no stay in God and His law, there can be expected no external endurance, no solidity. The righteous, on the contrary, have their root in God; nothing can tear them from the ground in which they are rooted, they are as trees which no storm outroots. The very same thought is clothed in other words in Proverbs 10:25, and another statement regarding the root of the righteous is found at Proverbs 12:12.
*More commentary available at chapter level.