Proverbs 26:2

As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.

Human anathemas

Another, and perhaps a better, translation is this, “Unsteady as the sparrow, as the flight of the swallow, is a causeless curse; it cometh not to pass.” “There is a difficulty here,” says Wardlaw, “in settling the precise point in the comparison. The ordinary interpretation explains it with reference to curses pronounced by men without cause--imprecations, anathemas, that are unmerited--and the meaning is understood to be--as the bird or sparrow, by wandering, and as the swallow, or wood-pigeon, by flying, shall not come--that is, shall not reach us or come upon us in the way of injury--so is it with the causeless curse. It will “do no more harm than the bird that flies overhead, than Goliath’s curses on David.” And it might be added that, as these birds return to their own place, to the nests whence they came, so will such gratuitous maledictions come back upon the persons by whom they are uttered.

I. Men are frequently the victims of human imprecations. Few men pass through the world without creating enemies, either intentionally or otherwise. Men vent their hatred in various ways.

II. That human imprecations are sometimes undeserved. The curse is “causeless.” Sometimes the curses of men are deserved. There are two classes of causeless curses--

1. Those that are hurled at us because we have done the right thing. When you are cursed for reproving evil, for proclaiming an unpopular truth, or pursuing a righteous course which clashes with men’s prejudices or interests, the curse is causeless.

2. Those that are uttered without reason or feeling. There are men who are so in the habit of using profane language that it almost flows from their lips without malice or meaning. The greatest men in history have been cursed, and some of them have died under a copious shower of human imprecations.

III. Undeserved imprecations are always harmless. “The greatest curse causeless shall not come.” Was David the worse for Shimei’s curse? or Jeremiah for the curse of his persecutors? “He that is cursed without a cause,” says Matthew Henry, “whether by furious imprecations or solemn anathemas, the curse will do him no more harm than the sparrow that flies over his head. It will fly away like the sparrow or the wild swallow, which go nobody knows where, until they return to their proper place, as the curse will at length return to him that uttered it.” “Cursing,” says Shakespeare, “ne’er hurts him, nor profits you a jot. Forbear it, therefore,--give your cause to heaven.” But if the curse be not causeless, it will come. Jotham’s righteous curse came upon Abimelech and the men of Shechem (Judges 9:56). Elisha’s curse fearfully came to the young mockers of Bethel (2 Kings 2:24). “The curse abides on Jericho from generation to generation.” (Homilist.)