A Wise Son and the Mouth of the Righteous
1 The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father; but a foolish son brings grief to his mother. 2 Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivers from death. 3 Yahweh will not allow the soul of the righteous to go hungry, but he thrusts away the desire of the wicked. 4 He becomes poor who works with a lazy hand, but the hand of the diligent brings wealth. 5 He who gathers in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during the harvest is a son who causes shame. 6 Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked. 7 The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked will rot. 8 The wise in heart accept commandments, but a chattering fool will fall. 9 He who walks blamelessly walks surely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out. 10 One who winks with the eye causes sorrow, but a chattering fool will fall. 11 The mouth of the righteous is a spring of life, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked. 12 Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all wrongs. 13 Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has discernment, but a rod is for the back of him who is void of understanding. 14 Wise men lay up knowledge, but the mouth of the foolish is near ruin. 15 The rich man’s wealth is his strong city. The destruction of the poor is their poverty. 16 The labor of the righteous leads to life. The increase of the wicked leads to sin.
The style changes completely at this verse, and the first thing the new collection does is put a father and a mother back in the room.
A new heading marks the change — The proverbs of Solomon — and with it the writing changes shape. The long discourses stop. What follows for twelve chapters is single verses, each complete in itself, most of them built on a contrast with but in the middle. There is no argument running through them and very little arrangement by subject.
That form is worth understanding before reading further. A proverb of this kind states one true thing about how life generally runs, in the fewest words that will hold it. It does not qualify itself, because a qualified proverb is not memorable and memorability is the whole point. Each is a tool to be picked up when it fits, and the collection expects the reader to supply the judgment about when that is.
The first verse of the collection is chosen with care. A wise son makes a glad father; but a foolish son brings grief to his mother. Nine chapters of a father instructing a son end, and the first independent saying is about what a son does to his parents. The instruction has not changed subject; it has changed method.
The run that follows moves through wealth, work and speech, and two of its lines temper the rest. Treasures of wickedness profit nothing, but righteousness delivers from death sets a limit on what money can do, and it is followed within a few verses by a plain acknowledgment of what money does do: The rich man's wealth is his strong city. The destruction of the poor is their poverty. No moral is attached to that second saying. It is an observation that being poor is dangerous, and the book is content to state it without comment.
Speech dominates the second half of the run, and one verse from it has outlived the rest. Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all wrongs. Covering here is not concealment of a crime — the same collection insists that a hidden fault is found out. It is the refusal to publish an injury that could be published, and the New Testament takes the phrase up in exactly that sense 1 Peter 4:8.
settled What this mark means