While I understand this wise saying from my own experience, I have really come to appreciate it from the guys here at Helping Up Mission. Time after time one will share about living foul (“the wicked”) and always feeling the need (in many cases, rightly so!) to watch his back because of all the bad stuff he had done or was still in the middle of dealing with. When we aren’t living right or telling the truth – or even telling the same story to everybody – there is the reality of having to face the consequences of our choices.
But the reverse is also true. If we are living right (“the righteous”), we don’t have to fear the consequences of our bad decisions and our good choices set us up to experience the benefits of them. Living “bold as a lion” is possible when we choose a lifestyle of just doing “the next right thing.”
BENEATH THE SURFACE
The “lion” of this verse is the Hebrew word for a “young but fully-grown lion.” In the Disney movie Lion King, when Simba returns from his self-imposed exile in the desert, he would have been such a young but fully-grown lion.
Simba’s father, Mufasa, was the lion who ruled as king of the Pride Lands of Africa. Mufasa would represent the mature lion mentioned in 28:15 (the standard Hebrew word for “lion” and different from the “lion” of this verse).
One Right Thing at a Time,
Pastor Gary Byers
Spiritual Life Director
The Lion King and Proverbs
The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion (Proverbs 28:1)