John Gill's Bible Commentary Ver. 4. Wrath [is] cruel, and anger [is] outrageous , etc.] Or “an inundation” f744 ; it is like the breaking in of the sea, or a flood of mighty waters, which know no bounds, and there is no stopping them: so cruel and outrageous were the wrath and anger of Simeon and Levi, in destroying the Shechemites; of Pharaoh, in making the Israelites to serve with hard bondage, and ordering their male children to be killed and drowned; and of Herod, in murdering the infants in and about Bethlehem; but who [is] able to stand before envy ? which is secret in a man’s heart, and privately contrives and works the ruin of another, and against which there no guarding. All mankind in Adam fell before the envy of Satan; for it was through the envy of the devil that sin and death came into the world, in the Apocrypha: “Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it.” (Wisdom 2:24) Abel could not stand before the envy of Cain; nor Joseph before the envy of his brethren; nor Christ before the envy of the Jews, his bitter enemies; and, where it is, there is confusion and every evil work, ( James 3:14,16). An envious man is worse than an angry and wrathful man; his wrath and anger may be soon over, or there may be ways and means of appeasing him; but envy continues and abides, and works insensibly.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 3, 4 - Those who have no command of their passions, sink under the load.
Original Hebrew אכזריות395 חמה2534 ושׁטף7858 אף639 ומי4310 יעמד5975 לפני6440 קנאה׃7068
