The Name of Yahweh Is a Strong Tower
1 A man who isolates himself pursues selfishness, and defies all sound judgment. 2 A fool has no delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own opinion. 3 When wickedness comes, contempt also comes, and with shame comes disgrace. 4 The words of a man’s mouth are like deep waters. The fountain of wisdom is like a flowing brook. 5 To be partial to the faces of the wicked is not good, nor to deprive the innocent of justice. 6 A fool’s lips come into strife, and his mouth invites beatings. 7 A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are a snare to his soul. 8 The words of a gossip are like dainty morsels: they go down into a person’s innermost parts. 9 One who is slack in his work is brother to him who is a master of destruction. 10 Yahweh’s name is a strong tower: the righteous run to him, and are safe. 11 The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, like an unscalable wall in his own imagination. 12 Before destruction the heart of man is proud, but before honor is humility. 13 He who answers before he hears, that is folly and shame to him. 14 A man’s spirit will sustain him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear? 15 The heart of the discerning gets knowledge. The ear of the wise seeks knowledge. 16 A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men. 17 He who pleads his cause first seems right— until another comes and questions him. 18 The lot settles disputes, and keeps strong ones apart. 19 A brother offended is more difficult than a fortified city. Disputes are like the bars of a fortress. 20 A man’s stomach is filled with the fruit of his mouth. With the harvest of his lips he is satisfied. 21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue; those who love it will eat its fruit. 22 Whoever finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor of Yahweh. 23 The poor plead for mercy, but the rich answer harshly. 24 A man of many companions may be ruined, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Two towers are set four verses apart, one of them real and one of them in a man's imagination.
The chapter opens on isolation, and it is unusually severe about it. A man who isolates himself pursues selfishness, and defies all sound judgment. Cutting yourself off is treated not as unhappiness but as a moral choice with a motive. The verse after it explains the mechanism: A fool has no delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own opinion. A man who wants only to be heard has no use for anyone else present. He will eventually be alone, whether he arranges it or not.
The two towers are the chapter's structure. Yahweh's name is a strong tower: the righteous run to him, and are safe. Then, four verses later: The rich man's wealth is his strong city, like an unscalable wall in his own imagination. The same architecture, twice. One is a refuge a man runs into. The other is a wall that exists chiefly where he pictures it, and the qualifying phrase is doing all the work.
One verse should be written above every argument ever had: He who answers before he hears, that is folly and shame to him. And its companion is the sharpest thing the collection says about hearing both sides: He who pleads his cause first seems right— until another comes and questions him. The first account is always convincing. That is not a fact about liars. It is a fact about the structure of an unopposed story.
The run on speech reaches its highest pitch here. Gossip is like dainty morsels: they go down into a person's innermost parts — the appeal is real, the swallowing is easy, and the lodging is deep. And then the summary the whole book has been building toward: Death and life are in the power of the tongue; those who love it will eat its fruit. The second clause is the one usually dropped. Whichever a man deals in, he is the one who eventually eats it.
The chapter closes on friendship with a verse whose two halves cut in opposite directions: A man of many companions may be ruined, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Quantity is named as a hazard. What is set against it is one relationship, which outperforms the strongest tie a person is born with.
settled What this mark means