Here, 1. The pleasure we are apt to take in the troubles of an enemy is
forbidden us. If any have done us an ill turn, or if we bear them
ill-will only because they stand in our light or in our way, when any
damage comes to them (suppose they fall), or any danger (suppose they
stumble), our corrupt hearts are too apt to conceive a secret delight
and satisfaction in it--Aha! so would we have it; they are entangled;
the wilderness has shut them in--or, as Tyrus said concerning Jerusalem
(Ezek. xxvi. 2) I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste. "Men
hope in the ruin of their enemies or rivals to wreak their revenge or
to find their account; but be not thou so inhuman; rejoice not when the
worst enemy thou hast falls." There may be a holy joy in the
destruction of God's enemies, as it tends to the glory of God and the
welfare of the church (Ps. lviii. 10); but in the ruin of our enemies,
as such, we must by no means rejoice; on the contrary, we must weep
even with them when they weep (as David, Ps. xxxv. 13, 14), and that in
sincerity, not so much as letting our hearts be secretly glad at their
calamities. 2. The provocation which that pleasure gives to God is
assigned as the reason of that prohibition: The Lord will see it,
though it be hidden in the heart only, and it will displease him, as it
will displease a prudent father to see one child triumph in the
correction of another, which he ought to tremble at, and take warning
by, not knowing how soon it may be his own case, he having so often
deserved it. Solomon adds an argument ad hominem--addressed to the
individual: "Thou canst not do a greater kindness to thy enemy, when he
has fallen, than to rejoice in it; for them, to cross thee and vex
thee, God will turn his wrath from him; for, as the wrath of man works
not the righteousness of God, so the righteousness of God was never
intended to gratify the wrath of man, and humour his foolish passions;
rather than seem to do that he will adjourn the execution of his wrath:
nay, it is implied that when he turns his wrath from him he will turn
it against thee and the cup of trembling shall be put into thy hand."