“The godless in heart cherish anger; they do not cry for help when he binds them.
Elihu, the speaker in this chapter, describes how God deals with people through suffering. God binds them in trouble, and the test is whether they will cry out to Him. Some do. This verse is about those who stay silent, and what that silence says about a heart.
The setting: God's discipline of His own
Most of this chapter is about how God trains people who belong to Him. Verses 11 and 12 promise good days to those who listen, and ruin to those who do not. So why does a verse about the godless follow?
William KellyNot every word of the chapter applies only to His saints. In the New Testament, warnings about people who deceive can stand right in the middle of a record of the privileges that belong to those who are His. The same happens in the Old Testament.
Who "hypocrites in heart" are
The phrase is not about people who fail; it is about people who pose. And the verse traces what that pose costs them, right through to how their life ends.
Leslie M. GrantMore serious still is the case of the "hypocrites in heart" (v.13), for "they store up wrath." These are people who pretend to be believers while their hearts are against God. They "do not cry for help when He binds them." When the Lord puts them in a bind, they fail the test completely. How can a hypocrite honestly cry to the Lord for help? Their own hypocrisy defeats them. They die in their youth, in the company of perverted people (v.14). Their foolish choice in life decides their end in death. In contrast, God delivers the poor who know how to cry to Him honestly. The affliction and oppression they suffer are the test by which God "opens their ears" to listen to Him.
A step beyond the previous verse
Verse 12 already described people who would not listen and perished. This verse goes somewhere darker still.
J. N. DarbyThose who did not bow were cut off — "shall perish by the sword" — "Hypocrites in heart," "cry not when he binds them," goes further still.
Why the wrath piles up
Being bound by God is an invitation to ask Him for mercy. Refusing that invitation is not neutral — it is an active choice, and it accumulates.
Samuel RidoutElihu points out the great principles of present affliction. The refusal of the hypocrite only emphasizes them. He nurses his wrath instead of humbly crying to God for mercy. The man who despises God will meet his doom with all the unclean. But God will save the humble sufferer, "in" and indeed "by" his affliction. It works out blessing for him.
Hardship does not automatically soften anyone
It is tempting to assume that suffering makes people humble. This verse says otherwise, and the same pattern shows up on a national scale.
The Bible TreasuryHardship rarely softens or improves the heart of a proud rebel against God. Even more rarely do we find a nation, or any large part of a community, truly humbled by defeat. Of such people it can be said, "They do not cry for help when He binds them." Later it was written of Israel, when they suffered defeat, that the people did not turn to Him who struck them, and did not seek the LORD of hosts.
Comfort hidden inside a warning
For anyone frightened by this verse, one writer turns it around. The very pain that makes you doubt whether you belong to God is evidence that you do.
Charles Stanley"The godless in heart cherish anger; they do not cry for help when He binds them." You say, "If I were a child of God, surely I should not have all this trouble and bitterness." This verse shows you the answer. If you were not a real child of God, but a hypocrite in heart, you would not have all this bitterness. Instead you would go on in sin until you perished for ever.
Summary
- Bound — God binds people in affliction on purpose. The affliction is the test that opens their ears to listen to Him. The binding is an invitation to cry out.
- Silent — The mark of the hypocrite in heart is not a loud sin but a missing prayer: they do not cry for help when He binds them.
- Storing — The cry that is never made turns into stored wrath. Nursing anger instead of asking God for mercy is how it piles up.
- Hardened — Hardship humbles no one by itself. A proud rebel, and even a whole nation, can pass through it unchanged.
- Crying — God saves the humble sufferer in and by the affliction. So the bitterness you feel now marks you as His child, rather than shutting you out.