At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
“The robbery of the wicked shall destroy them; Because they refuse to do judgment”
Proverbs 21:7
“The violence of the wicked will destroy them, Because they refuse to do justice”
Proverbs 21:7
The disparity between the KJV and NKJV (robbery/violence) is not the result of mistranslation, but rather the consequence of the underlying word having a broad semantic range—despoil, oppress, devastate, deal violently, rob, pillage.
The principle here is that a certain kind of wickedness, greedy for gain, snatches at that gain in counterproductive and suicidal ways. Because justice is not their concern at all, they refuse to “do judgment.” They do not recognize any standard over them that arises from outside the realm of their own lusts and desires. All their guiding principles arise from within, and the end result of that is self-destruction.
They fall into the pit they dug for others. Haman built a gallows for Mordecai, and yet he was the one who wound up swinging from it. They scheme and plot without reference to righteousness, which is why a righteous universe will not suffer them to get away with it. The way the world is recoils upon them. They get caught in their own traps, tangled up in their own wires, ensnared by their own tricksy hearts.
All of this is because they would not tolerate that hateful word no. They refused accountability, and resolved to ignore any admonitions that went contrary to what they wanted in the moment. As it turns out, this is a very poor strategy for making your way in the world. It is an artificial feedback loop that provides you with nothing but lies to go on.
There is only one thing that the violent robber does recognize that is outside of him, and that would be the shiny bauble that he is reaching for. But it, like everything else in this arrangement, is deceptive.
