The righteous will never be removed,
But the wicked will not inhabit the earth.
The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom,
But the perverse tongue will be cut out.
The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable,
But the mouth of the wicked what is perverse.
Proverbs 10:30-32 (NKJV).
Throughout scripture, there are declarations made which should not be taken at face value. There are times when the literal words are describing a metaphorical truth, and sometimes when the literal words are describing a literal truth.
This passage is speaking to a metaphorical truth, because let's face it, David came long after the flood and God had promised that he wouldn't wipe out humanity again because of their sin. The wicked inhabit the earth in the literal sense, so you can either take this as one of those nebulous "contradictions" in the Bible, or just realize that it's not speaking literally.
Usually the parts of the passage which are metaphors would give this away, but it's worth repeating.
Or would any assert that the lips of the righteous literally know what is acceptable? I'd love to hear that explained.
Really, lips reflect speech, which is itself called an "overflow of the heart" elsewhere in scripture. Metaphors, lots and lots of metaphors, so when folks start playing the "you have to take everything literally in the Bible" card, you should raise an eyebrow with suspicion because not even the Bible itself claims that.
Moving on, the metaphor here is regarding legacy and behavior. Those who are wicked will make choices that end their lives early, and not just that, but they'll boast of their intent while they're doing it. Wickedness is infatuated with death because God is life. If you're going to rebel against God, you need to be in contrast on important character attributes, and so if God loves life, cherishes it, creates it, then the wicked will, by definition, do the opposite.
We see this with the discussions on abortion. Since nobody can be expected to take responsibility for their choices, such as having unprotected sex, we must make the murder of conceived babies socially and morally acceptable.
Oh sure, the "rape, incest, life-of-mother" distraction gets drug out, but any time spent with the statistics and data show that the significant majority of abortions are about convenience, not about "protecting women", unless you look at it as "protecting women from their own poor choices."
We see this in discussions about political correctness, where the superficial morals of decency are perverted to serve the wicked in trying to cloak their true intent. Everyone is supposed to talk and behave in a certain way, not because it is good, but because it gives certain people leverage in the social arena.
The wicked don't understand "good" or "bad", they aren't making a conscious choice to reject actual "good", they simply perceive "good" as just another "evil". They don't see a comparison on a moral dimension, merely on a practical one, a materialistic mindset where their experiences, not the consequences that come of them, are held up as the real guidance for behavior.
We've heard it from people who will claim they know something is "wrong", but they "don't care". What they're really saying is that they don't think the grounding for "wrong" is real, but they don't want to be rude, so instead of explaining their disdain for the system, they make it sound like they are "above it all", pretending their aloof retorts are a showing of strength and resolve.
Eventually this talk will catch up with them though, in this life or the next. There will be consequences and there is such a thing as an objective measure of "good" and "bad". This is why, despite the superficial alignment to the appearance of "good deeds", in time the true heart of the wicked always comes out, and it is quite literally the job of the righteous to prevent it from being spread further.
Cutting out the tongue of the wicked might be literal, but it can also be metaphorical in the sense that, other than the death penalty, a common punishment for sin in historical Israel was exile. Shunning, kicking people out of society, leaving them to fend for themselves.
We see this dynamic resurface for Christianity, where a "brother" living in "unrepentant sin" is not to be kept in close fellowship with others in the church, but is instead to be ostracized because holiness is more important than preventing people from feeling lonely because they're unrepentant of sin.
This works the same way with removing pastors from the pulpit when they spread only lies. The righteous are to take action, not sit around waiting for God to move, and it's for this reason that Solomon always describes the wise, the righteous, in active fashion, and the wicked as reactive.
The wise and the righteous build towards the future, are refined by God in the process of sanctification.
The wicked have only the consequences of their choices to look forward to.
Is there any confusion still as to why only the righteous have hope for the future?
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