*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The wheel - The threshing wheel Isaiah 28:27-28, which passes over the grain and separates the grain from the chaff. The proverb involves therefore the idea of the division of the good from the evil, no less than that of the punishment of the latter.
Bringeth the wheel over them - He threshes them in his anger, as the wheel does the grain on the threshing-floor. Every one knows that grain was separated from its husks, in Palestine, by the feet of the oxen trampling among the sheaves, or bringing a rough-shod wheel over them. Asiatic kings often threshed their people, to bring out their property; but this is not what is intended here.
A wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the (h) wheel over them.
(h) Which was a kind of punishment then used.
A wise king scattereth the wicked,.... Or "fans them away" (i); separates them from his good counsellors, courtiers, and subjects; scatters them from his presence and court, and breaks their counsels and confederacies one with another; he discovers, discountenances, and discourages them; See Gill on Proverbs 20:8;
and bringeth the wheel over them; alluding to the custom of the eastern nations turning a cart wheel over the grain in threshing it out, and agreeably to the metaphor in the preceding clause; see Isaiah 28:27. Though some think it refers to a sort of punishment inflicted on malefactors in those times and countries, by putting them under harrows drawn on wheels, as breaking upon the wheel has been since used; see 2-Samuel 12:31. The Arabic version understands it of exile. Jarchi interprets the wise king of the Lord, and the wicked of Pharaoh and his host, on whom he brought the wheel, or gave measure for measure, and punished in a way of retaliation; and to this sense it is by some (k) interpreted,
"as the wheel turns over, just in the same place, so as the wicked hath done, it shall be done to them.''
It may be applied to Christ, the wise King, who scatters all his and our enemies; whose fan is in his hand, and he wilt thoroughly purge his floor, Matthew 3:12.
(i) "ventilat", Junius & Tremellius, Schultens. (k) Vid. Schindler. Lexic. col. 109. & Weemse's Christ. Synagog. l. 1. c. 6. s. 8. p. 187.
Justice should crush the wicked, and separate them from the virtuous.
(Compare Proverbs 20:8).
bringeth . . . over them--The wheel was used for threshing grain. The figure denotes severity (compare Amos 1:3).
26 A wise king winnoweth the godless,
And bringeth over them the wheel.
A variant to Proverbs 20:8, but here with the following out of the figure of the winnowing. For אופן with מזרה is, without doubt, the wheel of the threshing-cart, עגלה, Isaiah 28:27.; and thus with מזרה, the winnowing fork, מזרה is to be thought of; vid., a description of them along with that of the winnowing shovel, רחת, in Wetzstein's Excursus to Isaiah., p. 707ff. We are not to think of the punishment of the wheel, which occurs only as a terrible custom of war (e.g., Amos 1:3). It is only meant that a wise king, by sharp and vigorous procedure, separates the godless, and immediately visits them with merited punishment, as he who works with the winnowing shovel gives the chaff to the wind. Most ancient interpreters think on אופן (from אפן, vertere) in its metaphorical meaning: τρόπος (thus also Lwenstein, he deals with them according to merit), or the wheel of fortune, with reference to the constellations; thus, misfortune (Immanuel, Meri). Arama, Oetinger, and others are, however, on the right track.
The wheel - As the cart - wheel was anciently turned over the sheaves to beat the corn out of them. He punishes them as their offences deserve.
*More commentary available at chapter level.