KJV: The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.
ASV: The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.
Matthew Henry Commentary
29 The way of the LORD is strength to the upright: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity. 30 The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.
These two verses are to the same purport with those next before, intimating the happiness of the godly and the misery of the wicked; it is necessary that this be inculcated upon us, so loth are we to believe and consider it. 1. Strength and stability are entailed upon integrity: The way of the Lord (the providence of God, the way in which he walks towards us) is strength to the upright, confirms him in his uprightness. All God's dealings with him, merciful and afflictive, serve to quicken him to his duty and animate him against his discouragements. Or the way of the Lord (the way of godliness, in which he appoints us to walk) is strength to the upright; the closer we keep to that way, the more our hearts are enlarged to proceed in it, the better fitted we are both for services and sufferings. A good conscience, kept pure from sin, gives a man boldness in a dangerous time, and constant diligence in duty makes a man's work easy in a busy time. The more we do for God the more we may do, Job 17:9. That joy of the Lord which is to be found only in the way of the Lord will be our strength (Ne 8:10), and therefore the righteous shall never be removed. Those that have an established virtue have an established peace and happiness which nothing can rob them of; they have an everlasting foundation, Pr 10:25. 2. Ruin and destruction are the certain consequences of wickedness. The wicked shall not only not inherit the earth, though they lay up their treasure in it, but they shall not so much as inhabit the earth; God's judgments will root them out. Destruction, swift and sure destruction, shall be to the workers of iniquity, destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power. Nay, that way of the Lord which is the strength of the upright is consumption and terror to the workers of iniquity; the same gospel which to the one is a savour of life unto life to the other is a savour of death unto death; the same providence, like the same sun, softens the one and hardens the other, Ho 14:9.
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