CHAPTER 25
1These, too, are proverbs of Solomon, which
the men of Hezekiah king of Judah transcribed.
2God’s honor is to hide a matter,
the honor of kings, to probe a matter.
3The heavens for height and the earth for depth,
but the heart of kings is beyond probing.
4Remove the dross from silver,
and for the refiner the vessel comes out.
5Remove the wicked man from the king’s presence,
and his throne is firm-founded in justice.
6Do not preen before a king,
and do not stand in the place of the great.
7For better that he say to you, “Come up here,”
than that he abase you before a noble
8Do not go out quickly to a quarrel,
for what will you do afterward
when your neighbor puts you to shame?
9Take up your quarrel with your neighbor,
but another’s secret do not reveal,
10lest he who hears revile you,
and your infamy not be withdrawn.
11Golden apples in silver carvings,
a word spoken in its own right way.
12A ring of gold and a fine-gold bangle—
the wise rebuker to an ear that heeds.
13Like the chill of snow on a harvest day,
a faithful messenger to his senders,
he revives his master’s spirits.
14Clouds and wind yet there is no rain—
a man who boasts of a deceptive gift.
15Through patience a leader is duped,
and a gentle tongue breaks a bone.
16If you find honey, eat just what you need,
lest you have your fill of it and throw it up.
17Be sparing of your visits in your neighbor’s house,
lest he have his fill of you and hate you.
18A mace and a sword and a sharpened arrow—
a man who bears false witness against his neighbor.
19A shattered tooth and a shaky leg—
treacherous refuge on a day of trouble.
20Who takes off a garment on a cold day,
thus the singer of songs to a downcast heart.
21If your foe is hungry, feed him bread,
and if he thirsts, give him water,
22for you would heap live coals on his head,
and the LORD will pay you back.
23A north wind brings on rain,
and an angry face—a secretive tongue.
24Better to dwell in the corner of a roof
than with a quarrelsome wife in a spacious house.
25Cool water to a famished throat—
good news from a distant land.
26A muddied fountain, a fouled-up spring—
a righteous man toppling before the wicked.
27To eat too much honey is not good,
and to be sparing of speech is honor.
28A breached city without a wall—
a man with no restraint to his spirit.
CHAPTER 25 NOTES
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1. which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah transcribed. The historical claim is perfectly plausible. Hezekiah reigned during the last three decades of the eighth century B.C.E., and court scribes in this period might well have collated and redacted a small collection of proverbs. The use of “too,” gam, clearly suggests that there was at least one earlier collection, the most likely candidate being the one that begins in chapter 10.
2. God’s honor is to hide a matter. God’s purposes in history, nature, and individual lives are beyond human ken, and their hidden character enhances our sense of divine power.
the honor of kings, to probe a matter. The king, as supreme judicial and executive authority, is obliged to sift out facts for the purposes of justice and policy. The emphasis on kings and on the comportment before nobility in all likelihood reflects the concerns of the court scribes responsible for this collection of proverbs. It continues through verse 7.
3. The heavens for height and the earth for depth. This line initiates the puzzle pattern that is especially prominent in this particular collection: a potentially enigmatic image in the first verset followed by its human referent or antithesis in the second verset.
4. Remove the dross from silver. In this instance, the puzzle image takes up a whole line of poetry, and the explanation of its relevance to the affairs of men is unfolded in a second line (verse 5).
7. whom your eyes have seen. This clause sounds lame and may well be a mistaken scribal addition.
11. Golden apples in silver carvings. This image of exquisite jewelry for apt speech reflects the high value placed in Proverbs on eloquent and beautifully framed speech.
12. A ring of gold and a fine-gold bangle. Here the enigmatic nature of the riddle image in the first verset is flaunted: it is rather a surprise that something as harsh and immaterial as rebuke should turn out to be the referent of these images of fine jewelry. The ring, nezem, would be worn on either the ear or the nose, and the former placement fits nicely with the listening ear.
13. Like the chill of snow on a harvest day. Of course, snow would never fall on a harvest day in the land of Israel. The early harvest in late May is an especially hot period, but even during the late harvest at the beginning of October, it is relatively warm.
14. Clouds and wind. The combination of clouds and wind suggests that a heavy storm is brewing. The lack of rain then sets up the enigma of the riddle, to be solved in the second verset.
15. Through patience a leader is duped. If you take your time and calculate carefully, you can find a way to make a ruler serve your purposes. The verb could also be rendered as “beguiled,” but the violence of the second verset argues for the more negative sense.
a gentle tongue breaks a bone. This is a very vivid instance of the tendency to intensification in the second half of the line. Duping a ruler through patient strategy in the first verset is a plausibly realistic event; the second verset then deploys a strong hyperbole—gentle speech as an agency of terrific destruction, which is also an anatomical image, the soft tongue that paradoxically can break a bone.
17. Be sparing of your visits. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “make your foot rare.”
18. A mace and a sword and a sharpened arrow. In this instance the riddling nature of the initial verset is compounded by this stringing together of three different weapons. For the first term, the received text shows meifits (“scatter”), but this is almost certainly a mistake for mapats, “mace” or “club,” as the evidence of the Septuagint indicates.
19. shaky. The translation reads moʿedet, “stumbling” or “shaky,” for the Masoretic muʿedet, “designated” or “warned against,” the difference being only the vocalization.
20. vinegar on natron. The effect of vinegar on natron (sodium carbonate) is to produce an acrid sizzle.
22. the LORD will pay you back. Some understand this to mean that the LORD will reward you—reward for showing humanity to your enemy. But the verb also means to requite or punish, and that sense is a better match with the idea of heaping coals on the foe’s head in the first verset: if you are inhumane to your enemy, the LORD will requite it of you.
23. an angry face—a secretive tongue. Showing anger drives people to guard their words and not say what they mean.
24. Better to dwell in the corner of a roof. This verse duplicates 21:9. See the comments there.
27. to be sparing of speech is honor. The Masoretic Text here makes little sense: weḥeqer kevodam kavod, “and the probing of their honor is honor.” This translation follows the emendation formulated by Fox, wehoqer daber mekhubad.
28. A breached city without a wall. This riddle image would have communicated a condition of terribly exposed vulnerability to the ancient audience, which was very familiar with fortified walls as an important means of protecting cities from invaders. In the second verset, then, the man of unrestrained spirit is seen as making himself painfully vulnerable to humiliation or harm.