For the righteous falleth seven times, and riseth up again; but the wicked stumble into disaster.
Proverbs 24:16 answers a man who is plotting against a righteous neighbour's home. It does not deny that good people go down; it draws the line between a fall you get up from and a collapse you don't.
The verse as an answer to the schemer
The line is not a general saying dropped in at random. It gives the reason for the warning just before it. That warning tells an attacker to keep away from the righteous man's home.
The verse now warns the wicked man how foolish it is to lie in wait outside the home of the righteous (v. 15), hoping to rob him. "For the righteous falls seven times and rises again" (v. 16). At first the wicked may think his evil plans have worked. In the end he will find himself defeated, often by sudden disaster.
Two men, two histories
The contrast is not between one who falls and one who doesn't. Both go down. What separates them is whether they come back up. One writer names men from Israel's history on each side.
The righteous may fall again and again — "seven times" — yet he rises each time. The wicked stumble into disaster. Look on the one hand at David; at Shimei, Ahithophel, Absalom, and Joab on the other.
Falls that are trouble, not sin
Some of the falling here is pressure from outside — suffering that strikes a person down. One writer treats that humbling as the very thing that lets a servant's light out.
In order for the light to shine more brightly, the vessel must be humbled... "struck down, but not destroyed." This was deep suffering to the flesh, but as Proverbs tells us, a righteous man may fall seven times, and rise up again (Prov. 24:16).
Another writer sets the same point beside the story of the house built on rock. Shaking will come; the foundation settles the outcome.
A disciple wanting to be faithful to the Lord and obey His word — that is the wise man in our parable — can fail too. Nor will he be spared trials. Events will come that shake even the strongest believer's life to its foundation. But he knows his house stands on solid rock and will not fall.
Getting up is the evidence of life
Other falls are real sin. One writer uses this proverb to mark off failure from deliberate, settled rebellion — and points to Peter, who denied his Lord and still came back.
Wilful sin is not slipping, or being caught in a fault. It is not even giving way to outside pressure in an hour of self-confidence, as Peter did when he denied his Lord. Grievous and dreadful as this sin was, it was not wilful... one look from the Lord Jesus brought the poor, self-confident one back to Him, brokenhearted. So it always is where divine life is in the soul. "The righteous falls seven times and rises again."
What lifts a man up
The rising is not the fallen man's own resilience. One writer traces it to grace, which works on a different principle from the consequences a man reaps.
Some would tell us that if a man falls, he can never recover his position; and no doubt, under government, we must reap as we sow. But grace is another thing altogether. Government drove Adam out of Eden and never put him back, but grace promised the woman's offspring who would win. Government kept Moses out of the promised land, but grace led him up the mountain to see it. Government sent a perpetual sword on David's house, but grace made the son of Bathsheba the wisest and wealthiest of Israel's kings.
Grace does not just return a person to where he stood before. Where the self-judgment is thorough, the man ends up somewhere he had never been.
He loves to bring the one who has failed, once restored, into a better condition than he had ever known before. Witness Simon Peter at the end of the Gospels and the beginning of the Acts... Where self-judgment is thorough, where a person sides with God against his own sin, it always brings him into a depth of God's grace he never had before — as deep as the repentance goes.
Summary
- Fall. The righteous go down — "seven times" — through both hardship and personal failure. A record of falls is not proof that someone is not righteous.
- Rise. Getting back up is the distinguishing mark. Where divine life is in the soul, a return follows the fall, as it did for Peter.
- Grace lifts. Consequences follow sin under God's government, but grace works on another principle — Adam, Moses and David all show it.
- Deeper after. Restoration is not a return to the old level; thorough self-judgment brings a person into a depth of grace he never had before.
- The other man. The wicked also falls, but into disaster with no recovery — which is why plotting against a righteous man's house is folly.