Proverbs 20:26 -- A wise king winnows the wicked and drives the wheel over them.
Why do people kill and steal? Because they can! The writer of Judges explains violent lawlessness: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25).” The king and his governors should praise good people, make the wicked fear, and separate the wicked from the good (Romans 13:3-4, see Genesis 9:6). A wise king knows that Original Sin is the “root cause” of wickedness, not merely some social condition like poverty or family brokenness. Everyone is capable of murder and theft, and even the poor and the fatherless know that murder and theft are wrong. So a wise king will “winnow” the wicked wherever they appear.
The figure of speech comes from an ancient method of separating grain from chaff by means of a threshing wheel (see Amos 1:3). A farmer stood on a wooden frame with three or four rollers studded with iron teeth, while two oxen pulled it over cut grain stalks. The iron teeth chopped the stalks into fodder for the oxen and crushed out the grain. The mixture was then ready to toss into the wind with a winnowing fan that would finally separate the grain from the chaff (see Matthew 3:12).
Who are the wicked? In one sense, everyone is evil because everyone sins and comes short of the glory of God. Here, however, “wicked” refers to people who go beyond evil thoughts, which only God can see. It means people who use words to slander, words to lie under oath in court, or words to incite sedition. It means people who use their hands to brawl, steal, or kill. No society that does not winnow out such people can enjoy peace or prosperity.
Unfortunately, not all rulers are wise. Some simply fail to fulfill their calling from God, maybe playing golf twenty hours a week, maybe just using their office to get rich. Others refuse to distinguish between good and evil, even calling evil good and good evil, while making excuses for the wicked and failing to judge with an even hand. A wise ruler, however, enforces one law for the rich and the poor, one law for people from the king’s tribe and from other tribes, one law for the police and those they are charged to protect, one law for the educated and the uneducated. He winnows the wicked, understanding that swift and certain punishment matters more than severity. “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11).” In thus winnowing diligently, fairly, and swiftly, a wise king secures peace and safety for himself and his kingdom.
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Dr. Bill Edgar, former chair of the Geneva College Board of Trustees, former Geneva College President and longtime pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA)
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