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God Will Be Your Confidence

Proverbs 3:25-26 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
²⁵Do not be afraid of sudden panic^[1]
or the storm of the wicked, when it comes,
²⁶for Jehovah will be your confidence
and will keep your foot from being caught.

In Proverbs 3:25-26, Solomon goes on to help us appreciate that we will only have peace and freedom from anxiety by our trust in the wisdom of God.

Do not be afraid of sudden panic: Sudden: (פִּתְאֹם pithom) is describing an incident that occurs or happens quickly and unexpectedly or without warning, coming as a complete surprise, creating panic, fear, dread, or even terror within us. The second line offers some insight into the nature of the sudden fear, fright, and terror.

Or the storm of the wicked, when it comes: The storm (שׁוֹאָה shoah or שֹׁאָה shoah) of the wicked has the sense of an incident that results in the destruction of the wicked ones. It is a storm-like occasion that comes on the wicked like a storm, resulting in their destruction.

For Jehovah will be your confidence: The Hebrew conjunction for (כִּי ki) gives us the reason for the reassurance that was just offered in verse 25. Confidence (כֶּסֶל kesel) refers to the trust we can have in Jehovah, the faith we can have, and the reliability we know. When looking at the context of verses 24-26, confidence gives us the sense of the courage we can possess, the hope in Jehovah that we can have, and the security that we can feel in the face of threatening conditions because of our complete trust in Jehovah.

Will keep your foot from being caught: Clearly, the thought here is of one getting his foot caught in a trap or a snare. The foot (רֶגֶל regel) here is not specifically speaking of the part of the leg below our ankle. Instead, it refers to the whole person, meaning that Jehovah will not allow us to be caught unawares, off guard in some incident that occurs quickly and unexpectedly or without warning, surprising us to the point of sudden fear, fright, terror.

Now, let us take a moment to establish what it does not mean. Should we understand these verses, or any other in Scripture, that because we are wisely walking with Jehovah God, he will miraculously step in to protect each Christian personally from disease, mental disorders, injury, or death? These sorts of miracles are the exception to the rule. Of the 4,000 plus years of Bible history, from Adam to Jesus, with tens of millions of people living and dying, we have but a few dozen miracles that we know of in Scripture. Even in Bible times, miracles were not every day, far from it. Hundreds of years may pass with no historical record of a miracle happening at all.

If we are wisely walking with Jehovah, we can be confident that bodily injury and early death are far less likely than if we were not. Moreover, we can draw on the resurrection hope. Does Jehovah God miraculously heal us? Yes, but it is an extreme exception to the rule. He miraculously heals those who will play a major role in his settling of the issues raised in the Garden of Eden.

These verses and the rest of Scripture teach us that if we walk with God by using biblical discernment and exercising biblically sound judgment, we can be confident that we will not stumble into the difficulties that the world of mankind alienated from God faces every day. That statement is generally true unless an unexpected occurrence befalls us. Conversely, the wicked do not have this protection. In other words, Christians live by the moral values of Scripture, which gives them an advantage over those that do not. Therefore, almost all times, God answers our prayers by our faithfully acting on behalf of those prayers by applying Scripture in a balanced manner. If we have not taken in a deep knowledge of God’s Word, how can we have Spirit-inspired wisdom, the very knowledge of God to guide and direct us in our ways?

[1] Or fear, dread, terror