*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
While the offence of the wicked, rising out of a confirmed habit of evil, becomes snare for his destruction; the righteous, even if he offend, is forgiven and can still rejoice in his freedom from condemnation. The second clause is taken by some as entirely contrasted with the first; it expresses the joy of one whose conscience is void of offence, and who is in no danger of falling into the snare.
In the transgression of an evil man [there is] a (b) snare: but the righteous doth sing and rejoice.
(b) He is always ready to fall into the snare that he lays for others.
In the transgression of an evil man there is a snare,.... Or, according to the accents in some copies, "in the transgression of a man is an evil snare", as Aben Ezra observes the words may be read; there is a snare in sin to man himself; one sin leads on to another, and a man is snared by the works of his own hands, and is implicated and held in the cords of his own iniquity, and falls into the snare of the devil, out of which he is not easily recovered; and the transgression of one man is a snare to another; he is drawn into sin by ill examples; and, by indulging himself in sin, the evil day comes upon him unawares as a snare; and sooner or later he is filled with horrors of conscience, anguish, and distress;
but the righteous doth sing and rejoice; not at the snares of others, their sin or punishment; for such a man rejoices not in iniquity, though he sometimes does at the punishment of sinners, because of the glory of the divine justice; and Gersom thinks this is here meant; see Psalm 58:10; but rather, as he also observes, the righteous man rejoices at his deliverance from the snares of sin and Satan, and of the world; he rejoices in the righteousness by which he is denominated righteous; not his own, but the righteousness of Christ, it being so rich and glorious, so perfect and complete; he rejoices in salvation by him it being so suitable, so, real, so full, so free, and so much for the glory of God; he rejoices in the pardon of his sins through the blood of Christ, and in the expiation of them by his sacrifice; he rejoices in his person, in the greatness, fitness, fulness, and beauty of it; he rejoices in all his offices he bears and executes, and in all the relations he stands in to him; he rejoices in his word and ordinances, in the prosperity of his cause and interest, in the good of his people, and in hope of the glory of God; and even sings for joy in the view of electing, redeeming, and calling grace, and eternal life and happiness; he has peace of conscience now, fears no enemy, nor any danger, and expects a life of glory in the world to come; and oftentimes sings on the brink of the grave, in the view of death and eternity.
Transgressions always end in vexations. Righteous men walk at liberty, and walk in safety.
In--or, "By"
the transgression--he is brought into difficulty (Proverbs 12:13), but the righteous go on prospering, and so sing or rejoice.
6 In the transgression of the wicked man lies a snare;
But the righteous rejoiceth jubelt and is glad.
Thus the first line is to be translated according to the sequence of the accents, Mahpach, Munach, Munach, Athnach, for the second Munach is the transformation of Dechi; אישׁ רע thus, like אנשׁי־רע, Proverbs 28:5, go together, although the connection is not, like this, genitival, but adjectival. But there is also this sequence of the accents, Munach, Dechi, Munach, Athnach, which separates רע and אישׁ. According to this, Ewald translates: "in the transgression of one lies an evil snare;" but in that case the word ought to have been מוקשׁ רע, as at Proverbs 12:13; for although the numeral רבים sometimes precedes its substantive, yet no other adjective ever does; passages such as Isaiah 28:21 and Isaiah 10:30 do not show the possibility of this position of the words. In this sequence of accents the explanation must be: in the wickedness of a man is the evil of a snare, i.e., evil is the snare laid therein (Bttcher); but a reason why the author did not write מוקשׁ רע would also not be seen there, and thus we must abide by the accentuation אישׁ רע. The righteous also may fall, yet he is again raised by means of repentance and pardon; but in the wickedness of a bad man lies a snare into which having once fallen, he cannot again release himself from it, Proverbs 24:16. In the second line, the form ירוּן, for ירן, is defended by the same metaplastic forms as ישׁוּד, Psalm 91:6; ירוּץ, Isaiah 42:4; and also that the order of the words is not ישׂמח ורנּן (lxx ἐν χαρᾷ καὶ ἐν εὐθροσύνῃ; Luther: frewet sich und hat wonne [rejoices and has pleasure]), is supported by the same sequence of ideas, Zac 2:1-13 :14, cf. Jeremiah 31:7 : the Jubeln is the momentary outburst of gladness; the Freude gladness, however, is a continuous feeling of happiness. To the question as to what the righteous rejoiceth over [jubelt] and is glad [greuet] because of, the answer is not: because of his happy release from danger (Zckler), but: because of the prosperity which his virtue procures for him (Fleischer). But the contrast between the first and second lines is not clear and strong. One misses the expression of the object or ground of the joy. Cocceius introduces into the second line a si lapsus fuerit. Schultens translates, justus vel succumbens triumphabit, after the Arab. rân f. o., which, however, does not mean succumbere, but subigere (vid., under Psalm 78:65). Hitzig compares Arab. raym f. i., discedere, relinquere, and translates: "but the righteous passeth through and rejoiceth." Bttcher is inclined to read יראה ושׂמח, he sees it (what?) and rejoiceth. All these devices, however, stand in the background compared with Pinsker's proposal (Babylon.-Hebrews. Punktationssystem, p. 156):
"On the footsteps of the wicked man lie snares,
But the righteous runneth and is glad,"
i.e., he runneth joyfully (like the sun, Psalm 19:6) on the divinely-appointed way (Psalm 119:132), on which he knows himself threatened by no danger. The change of בפשׁע into בפשׂע has Proverbs 12:13 against it; but ירוץ may be regarded, after Proverbs 4:12, cf. Proverbs 18:10, as the original from which ירון is corrupted.
*More commentary available at chapter level.