CHAPTER 16

                ¹Man’s is the ordering of thought,

                    but from the LORD is the tongue’s pronouncing.

                ²All a man’s ways are pure in his eyes,

                    but the LORD takes the spirit’s measure.

                ³Turn over your deeds to the LORD,

                    that your plans may be firm-founded.

                ⁴Each act of the LORD has its own end;

                    even the wicked, for an evil day.

                ⁵The LORD’s loathing is every haughty man,

                    be sure of it, he will not go scot-free.

                ⁶In faithful kindness a crime is atoned,

                    and in the LORD’s fear one swerves from evil.

                ⁷When the LORD is pleased with the ways of a man,

                    even his enemies will make peace with him.

                ⁸Better a pittance in righteousness,

                    than abundant yield without justice.

                ⁹A man’s heart may plan his way,

                    but the LORD will make his step firm.

                ¹⁰There is magic on the lips of a king—

                    his mouth won’t betray in judgment.

                ¹¹A balance and just scale has the LORD,

                    all the weights in His purse are His work.

                ¹²Wicked acts are the loathing of kings,

                    for in righteousness a throne stands firm.

                ¹³Righteous lips are the pleasure of kings,

                    and they love an honest speaker.

                ¹⁴A king’s wrath is like death’s messengers,

                    but a wise man may appease it.

                ¹⁵In the light of a king’s face is life,

                    and his pleasure like a cloud with spring rain.

                ¹⁶Getting wisdom, how much better than gold,

                    to get discernment is choicer than silver.

                ¹⁷The uprights’ highway is to swerve from evil,

                    who guards his life will watch his way.

                ¹⁸Pride before a breakdown,

                    and before stumbling, haughtiness.

                ¹⁹Better abjectness with the humble

                    than sharing spoils with the proud.

                ²⁰Who looks into a matter will come out well,

                    and who trusts in the LORD is fortunate.

                ²¹The wise of heart will be called discerning,

                    and sweet speech will increase instruction.

                ²²Insight is a wellspring of life to its possessors,

                    but the reproof of the foolish is folly.

                ²³A wise man’s heart will make his mouth clever,

                    and lips’ sweetness increases instruction.

                ²⁴Pleasant sayings are honeycomb,

                    sweet to the palate, and healing to the bones.

                ²⁵There may be a straight way before a man,

                    but its end is the ways of death.

                ²⁶The toiler’s self toils away

                    because his own mouth has compelled him.

                ²⁷A worthless man is a furnace of evil,

                    and on his lips like burning fire.

                ²⁸A perverse man provokes a quarrel,

                    and a sullen man drives off a friend.

                ²⁹A lawless man gulls his companion

                    and leads him on a way that is not good.

                ³⁰He closes his eyes plotting perversions,

                    purses his lips and fixes on evil.

                ³¹Gray hair is a crown of splendor,

                    through righteousness attained.

                ³²Better patience than a warrior,

                    and who governs his spirit than a conqueror of towns.

                ³³In the lap the lot is cast,

                    but from the LORD is all the disposing.

CHAPTER 16 NOTES

Click here to advance to the next section of the text.

1. from the LORD is the tongue’s pronouncing. Throughout Proverbs, apt and articulate speech is conceived as a key to relationships among people and as the indispensable instrument of wisdom. Thus, a person orders his own thought because the autonomy of consciousness is not questioned, but it is a gift from God when thought is translated into fitting speech. The Hebrew rendered here as “pronouncing,” maʿaneh, can mean either speaking out or answering.

4. Each act . . . has its own end; / even the wicked. Reality may seem contradictory or disturbing, but God determines a purpose for all things, so that even the wicked, however outrageous their acts, are destined to come to a bad end, thus confirming the just system of divine purpose in all things.

6. In faithful kindness . . . / in the LORD’s fear. The combination of complacent piety and platitude, one must say, is manifested in a good many of the proverbs and is especially salient in this chapter.

9. A man’s heart may plan his way. This proverb is closely analogous to the one in verse 1, except that here it is action (“step”) rather than speech that is determined by God.

10. There is magic on the lips of a king. In Proverbs the faith in God’s authority and justice is repeatedly accompanied by a confidence in the established political order—here the order of justice implemented by kings. This political stance is one of several in Proverbs with which Qohelet takes issue.

11. balance . . . scale / . . . weights. These instruments for conducting trade, elsewhere in Proverbs referred to literally, are here a metaphor for the fairness and precision with which God judges the world.

13. they love. The Hebrew verb is in the singular and should be either emended to read as a plural or revocalized to read as a passive (“is loved”).

17. The uprights’ highway is to swerve from evil. This verset plays paradoxically with two spatial terms. The “upright” is literally “the straight ones,” “those who go straight.” Usually to “swerve” (sur) means to veer off from a straight path. Here, however, swerving from evil means going on the straight way.

20. Who looks into a matter . . . / who trusts in the LORD. This verse is another instance of the joining of platitude with piety.

23. make his mouth clever, / . . . lips’ sweetness. In a variation on the proverb of verse 1, here it is wisdom rather than God that produces apt and captivating speech.

24. sweet to the palate. The literal sense of the Hebrew noun nefesh in this context is “throat.”

25. This verse is identical with 14:12.

26. The toiler’s self toils away. This proverb is a little cryptic. Some interpreters understand “self,” nefesh, in its sense of “appetite,” and then construe “mouth” in the second verset as a metonymy for “hunger”—that is, the laborer is driven to toil by his own hunger. This translation construes the second half of the line as a reference to injudicious speech: because the worker has involved himself in debt by making an indiscreet commitment, he is obliged to labor in order to pay what he owes. This understanding would set this verse in contrast to the celebration of wise speech in verses 23 and 24.

27. a furnace of evil. The Masoretic Text reads koreh raʿah, “digs up evil.” The translation adapts a widely accepted emendation, kur (“furnace of “) raʿah.

30. closes his eyes . . . / purses his lips. Though there is some debate about the meaning of this verse, the likely intention is simply a kind of caricature of the wicked man who exhibits these facial gestures as he plots evil. The received text shows ʿotseh, which is not a comprehensible word, for “closes,” but the widely accepted emendation of ʿotsem yields the ordinary Hebrew verb for closing the eyes.

31. through righteousness. The Hebrew says “through the way of righteousness.” “The way” has been dropped from the translation to avoid cumbersomeness since it is in any case clearly implied.

33. In the lap the lot is cast. Although not much is known about the mechanics of casting lots in ancient Israel, it would seem that the lot was dropped into the lap of a seated person.