God's Providence Orders All Things to Their Proper Ends

Proverbs 16:4 presents a doctrine of divine ordering that has troubled interpreters for centuries: "The Lord hath made all things for Himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." Joseph S. Exell's Victorian exposition clarifies two interpretive paths.

First, some contend that Elohim created all things solely for His pleasure, without external motive. Yet this reading creates acute theological difficulty: How can the Almighty create wickedness deliberately for destruction's sake? Exell rightly rejects this as blasphemous. God's goodness moved Him to create creatures upon which He might display His excellence and communicate His happiness. The glory of Adonai consists not in advantage to Himself, but in communicating His goodness through creation and promoting His likeness among rational beings through righteousness.

Second—and more naturally—the text means that Yahweh has made all things suited to one another. Even wickedness and its punishment are proportionable: God causes them to correspond. This reflects the wisdom and exact adjustment (sophía, wisdom) of the divine works. The wicked are "fitted" not by creation unto wickedness, but by the operation of divine providence—nothing subsists without His power; nothing occurs without His concurrence. In Scripture's language, acknowledging God's supreme superintendence over all events, He is represented as ordering everything that transpires. The adjustment of human condition to human desert reveals not cruelty but perfect justice.