*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Righteousness - Including, perhaps, the idea of benevolence. Compare the use of δικαιοσύνη dikaiosunē, in Matthew 6:1 (the older reading), and 2-Corinthians 9:9-10.
Treasures of wickedness - Property gained by wicked means.
Delivered from death - Treasures gained by robbery often bring their possessors to an untimely death; but those gained by righteous dealing bring with them no such consequences.
Treasures of (a) wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.
(a) That is, wickedly gotten.
Treasures of wickedness profit nothing,.... By which are meant either a large abundance of riches in general, which for the most part are enjoyed by wicked men, and abused to wicked purposes, Proverbs 11:4; or an affluence of them, obtained in a wicked way, by fraud, oppression, and the like; see Micah 6:10; Or are either not used at all, or put to wicked uses: what are not used profit not the possessors of them, for they are "kept to the hurt of the owners" of them; and those which are got by ill means, or put to an ill use, "perish by evil travel", Ecclesiastes 5:13. Nor can anyone by his riches either redeem himself or his brother from destruction, or give to God a ransom for him; nor can he by them save himself from a corporeal death one year, one month, one day, one hour, one moment; nor will they be of any service to him in the day of judgment, when wrath comes forth against him;
but righteousness delivereth from death; either that which is righteously got, though it be ever so little, is a means of preserving life, and keeps their souls from famishing, Proverbs 10:3; or else what is liberally dispensed, for alms are called "righteousness", Psalm 112:9, Daniel 4:27. These are oftentimes the means of saving the lives of persons ready to perish, on whom they are bestowed, and who will venture their lives to save their benefactors; and such liberal persons are oftentimes blessed with long life, and are kept alive when threatened with death, Psalm 41:1; and though their good deeds are not meritorious of eternal life, yet they are rewarded with it in a way of grace, Matthew 25:34. Moreover, righteousness may be considered as legal and evangelical; a legal righteousness, or the righteousness of men in obedience to the law, cannot deliver from the sentence of death the law has passed; it is not properly a righteousness; it is imperfect, cannot justify, save, or bring to heaven, or entitle to life; notwithstanding this a man must die: but there is an evangelical righteousness; and this is either imparted and implanted in men, is the new man, which is created in righteousness and holiness; and this delivers from a moral or spiritual death, a death in trespasses and sins men are in; for by it they are quickened, live a life of faith on Christ, and have communion with God; have his image stamped on them, and live to him, and to Christ, and to righteousness, being freed from the servitude and dominion of sin; living in which is no other than death: or this righteousness is imputed, which is the righteousness of Christ; wrought out for them, reckoned to them, received by them, and by which they are justified; this delivers them, though not from a corporeal death, yet from the sting and curse of it, and from it as a penal evil, or as a punishment for sin: and it delivers from a legal death, or from the sentence and condemnation of the law, and from the second and eternal death, and entities them to life everlasting.
Though the righteous may be poor, the Lord will not suffer him to want what is needful for spiritual life.
Treasures . . . nothing--that is, Ill-gotten gains give no true happiness (compare Proverbs 4:17; Matthew 6:19).
righteousness--especially beneficence (Psalm 112:9).
death--the greatest of all evils.
There follows now a series of proverbs which place possessions and goods under a moral-religious point of view:
Treasures of wickedness bring no profit;
But righteousness delivers from death.
The lxx and Aquila translate ἀνόμους (ἀσεβεῖς). הועיל (to profit) with the accus. is possible, Isaiah 57:12, but אוצרות one does not use by itself; it requires a genitive designating it more closely. But also דּרשּׂיעא of the Targ., παρανόμων of Symmachus, fails; for the question still remains, to whom? Rightly Syr., Jerome, Theodotion, and the Quinta: ἀσεβείας, cf. Proverbs 4:17; Micah 4:10; Luke 16:9, μαμωνᾶς τῆς ἀδικίας. Treasures to which wickedness cleaves profit not, viz., him who has collected them through wickedness. On the contrary, righteousness saves from death (2b = Proverbs 11:4, where the parallelism makes it clear that death as a judgment is meant). In Deuteronomy 24:13 it had been already said that compassionate love is "righteousness before the Lord," the cardinal virtue of the righteousness of life. Faith (Habakkuk 2:4) is its soul, and love its life. Therefore δικαιοσύνη and ἐεημοσύνη are interchangeable ideas; and it ought not to be an objection against the Apocrypha that it repeats the above proverb, ἐλεημοσύνη ἐκ θανάτου ῥύεται, Tob. 4:10; 12:9, Sir. 3:30; 29:12, for Daniel 4:24 also says the very same thing, and the thought is biblical, in so far as the giving of alms is understood to be not a dead work, but (Psalm 112:9) the life-activity of one who fears God, and of a mind believing in Him and resting in His word.
Of wickedness - Such as are got by any sort of wicked practices. Death - Often from temporal, and always from eternal death.
*More commentary available at chapter level.