Proverbs 1:11Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The utterances of the wicked found in Proverbs, "Let us put away the innocent without blame... We shall gather up every precious possession," are not so obscure that they cannot be pertinent to Christ and His Church without needing extensive and complex interpretation. The Lord Jesus similarly expresses the sentiments of the malevolent in the parable found in the Gospel: "This is the heir; let us go and kill him and take possession of his inheritance" (Matt. 21:38).

God, speaking through Solomon, issues a directive: My child, if wrongdoers entice you, do not consent. If they propose, 'Join us; we will lay a trap for bloodshed, we will slay the innocent without cause, we will consume them whole as the grave.' This passage forewarns of the Lord's suffering.

When we are urged, “Join us in this act of violence,” we are confronted with a grave choice. The act of taking a neighbor's life, not as a consequence of just warfare, nor as a punishment for wrongdoing, nor through the verdict of human courts, but out of sheer personal hatred, cannot go unpunished. A young man might reflect, if not articulate, his internal struggle upon receiving such a call to violence. Meanwhile, the wicked advisors lull him into a false sense of security, assuring him that they will conceal the innocent spouse of the righteous; “Fear not, we will unjustly take the life of the innocent, without cause, and in vain. We will execute our plan so cleverly that there will be no evidence of our transgression: we will bury the victim underground, making it impossible to establish the truth of our crime.”