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The Benefit of Godly Fear

Proverbs 14:32 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
³²The wicked is overthrown through his evildoing,
but the righteous finds refuge in his death.

The wicked is overthrown through his evildoing. The Hebrew (דָּחָה dachah) verb rendered overthrown, elsewhere “thrown down,” “thrust down,” or “pushed down” means “exposed to danger, formally, brought down, i.e., pertaining to a state of unfavorable circumstance and exposure to harm or trouble as a figurative extension of being in a lowly stance, possibly from falling or tripping (Pr 14:32+), note this may possibly be implying a low status.”[1] How is the wicked one overthrown, thrown down, or thrust down? Some have suggested that this means that the wicked one does not have any hope of recovering when he encounters a calamity.

but the righteous finds refuge in his death. Some have rendered the Hebrew to read “in his integrity,” which could be the case with a slight correction of the Masoretic Text, which would then agree with the Greek Septuagint and the Syriac versions. However, the Masoretic text has “in his death.” The former is interpretive because they do not believe such a belief is too advanced for ancient Israel. This is just higher criticism, a historical-critical method of interpretation, infecting their translations, which is very subjective.

The Hebrew verb (חָסָה chasah) rendered finds refuge means the righteous one seeks to find or go to a safe location, where he will find safety, rest, or comfort. Thus, when hardship hits, the righteous man who possesses Godly fear takes shelter in his integrity to God. The righteous one has absolute trust in God, even to death. The proverb advises us to avoid the life path of the wicked, which ends in tragedy of their own making, but instead be faithful and entrust their lives to God, living in a godly way until the we have run the life course.

[1] James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).