The City's Heart Rejoices in Righteousness

When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth.—Proverbs 11:10

Beneath every community's errors and vanities lies a public conscience, pointing perpetually toward the right and the just as a compass needle turns toward the pole. This conscience operates in two directions.

First, the public conscience is gratified by the prosperity of the righteous. When principles of highest morality govern a city's life, rejoicing spreads everywhere—for where righteousness dwells, the blessing of Yahweh is present, and His blessing maketh rich without sorrow added. Even wicked men unconsciously rejoice when righteousness revives commercial industry, strengthens civic confidence, and creates healthy relations between nations and cities.

Second, the public conscience acknowledges the ruin of the wicked. The mouth of the wicked (stoma ponērou) channels impieties, falsehoods, and impurities that have overthrown states throughout history. When such a man perishes, gladness erupts—though he may have received hypocritical adulation during life. He took more than he gave; his benedictions carried stinging spirits and offered nothing enduring or solid.

The wicked imagine themselves popular, yet they are merely instruments, used in emergencies without understanding their own degradation. Every soul rejoices recalling the righteous—their names breathe fresh as heaven's air, evoking gardens of beauty and orchards of delight. The righteous leave legacies of health; the wicked leave only wreckage.