A perverse heart shall depart from me: I will not know a wicked person.
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Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
6. "When the wicked man departed from me, I knew him not" (ver. 4). I approved him not, I praised him not, he pleased me not. For we find the word "to know" occasionally used in Scripture, in the sense of "to be pleased." For what is hidden from God, brethren? Doth He know the just, and doth He not know the unjust? What dost thou think of, that He doth not know? I say not, what thinkest thou; but what wilt thou ever think, that He will not have seen beforehand? God knoweth all things, then; and yet in the end, that is in judgment after mercy, He saith of some persons: "I will profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity." Was there any one He did not know? But what meaneth, "I never knew you"? I acknowledge you not in My rule. For I know the rule of My righteousness: ye agree not with it, ye have turned aside from it, ye are crooked. Therefore He said here also: "When the wicked man departed from Me, I knew him not." ...Therefore, "when the wicked man dep...
Know. I looked upon them with such contempt, (Eusebius) or I highly disapproved of their conduct, (St. Augustine) and would have no society with them. (Calmet)
David was, in a manner, forced to tolerate Joab; but he showed sufficiently his displeasure, and ordered his successor to punish him, as soon as it could be done with safety to the state. (Menochius)
