It's A Trap

Proverbs 26:27  Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.

Every time I read this verse, I think about Disney's Swiss Family Robinson. It's not very spiritual, I know, but it's the truth. When the family learns of an imminent attack by pirates, they make various traps to defend their home, including digging deadfall traps (with a tiger thrown in for good measure). They  fortified themselves atop the mountain and made log falls to roll down if the enemy was foolish enough to climb up for them. But what if it wasn't a Disney movie, and the bad guys are the ones making traps? That's the image we have in our proverb.

The bad guy in the scene really wants to hurt his enemy, and he's going to go through a lot of trouble to set the trap. It takes a lot of work to dig a pit. Naturally, after I watched the Swiss Family Robinson, I wanted to dig a pit and try it out, like most boys probably did. But it takes a lot of  time and effort to dig a  deep pit and I always gave up. And to roll a stone up a hill? You would really have to hate someone to go through all the trouble to destroy them. One wonders what the payoff was for the man in the proverb? Most of the  time, the effort we put into vengeance is far more costly than the original offense.

Think about the effort pushing that rock up the mountain. Covered in sweat, muscles straining, gasping for air, pushing that rock up the hill –  all for vengeance and to hurt and kill. Every inch of ground takes all his strength to keep pushing and also to keep it from falling. It is up the mountain a pretty good way, but not far enough. It needs to be high up to cause maximum damager, because he cannot allow them to get away with that offense, or that slight. Suddenly, the stone is caught and it won’t go any further.  Hard as he tried, it won't budge, but he also can’t let go of the stone, he'll get run over. The stone of vengeance is caught by the rock of divine justice. He's worked himself into his own trap. Your sin will find you out and now there is no place else for the rock to go but down and to destroy whatever is in its path, starting with the one who worked so hard to get the stone up the hill.

God said vengeance is His – He'll take care of evildoers. You want vengeance because you are proud and don't like it when someone sins against you. Do you think God likes it? Stop trying to do God's job, because He's much better at it than you. You'll just end up mumbling to yourself in the bottom of a pit, or getting flattened by a rolling stone.