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Proverbs 10: What the Passage Says

71 claims across 32 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Proverbs 10 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter begins the main collection of Solomon's proverbs: short two-line sayings that set the person who does right beside the person who does wrong. The lines cover work and laziness, honest and dishonest wealth, what people say with their mouths, reputation after death, and length of life. Each saying stands on its own rather than building an argument.

Claim by Claim

  1. 10:1
    • These are the proverbs of Solomon.
    • A wise son makes his father glad.
    • A foolish son is his mother's grief.
  2. 10:2
    • Treasures gained by wickedness are of no profit.
    • Righteousness delivers from death.
  3. 10:3
    • The LORD will not let the appetite of the righteous go hungry.
    • The LORD thrusts away the craving of the wicked.
    • The Hebrew is ambiguous whether what the LORD thrusts away is the desire of the wicked or their substance.
  4. 10:4
    • A slack hand makes a person poor.
    • The hand of the diligent makes rich.
  5. 10:5
    • He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely.
    • He who sleeps during harvest is a son who brings shame.
  6. 10:6
    • Blessings are on the head of the righteous.
    • The mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
    • The Hebrew is ambiguous whether violence covers the mouth of the wicked or the mouth of the wicked covers violence.
  7. 10:7
    • The memory of the righteous is a blessing.
    • The name of the wicked will rot.
  8. 10:8
    • The wise in heart will accept commandments.
    • One foolish of lips will be thrust down to ruin.
  9. 10:9
    • He who walks in integrity walks securely.
    • He who makes his ways crooked will be found out.
  10. 10:10
    • He who winks the eye causes pain.
    • One foolish of lips will be thrust down to ruin.
  11. 10:11
    • The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life.
    • The mouth of the wicked conceals violence.
    • The Hebrew is ambiguous whether violence covers the mouth of the wicked or the mouth of the wicked covers violence.
  12. 10:12
    • Hatred stirs up quarrels.
    • Love covers all transgressions.
  13. 10:13
    • Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning.
    • A rod is for the back of him who lacks sense.
  14. 10:14
    • Wise men store up knowledge.
    • The mouth of a fool is imminent ruin.
  15. 10:15
    • The wealth of a rich man is his fortified city.
    • The poverty of the poor is their ruin.
  16. 10:16
    • The wages of the righteous lead to life.
    • The gain of the wicked leads to sin.
  17. 10:17
    • He who keeps instruction is on the path to life.
    • He who forsakes reproof goes astray.
    • The Hebrew is ambiguous whether he who forsakes reproof goes astray himself or leads others astray.
  18. 10:18
    • He who conceals hatred has lying lips.
    • He who spreads slander is a fool.
  19. 10:19
    • Where words are many, transgression is not lacking.
    • He who restrains his lips acts wisely.
  20. 10:20
    • The tongue of the righteous is choice silver.
    • The heart of the wicked is of little worth.
  21. 10:21
    • The lips of the righteous feed many.
    • Fools die for lack of sense.
  22. 10:22
    • The blessing of the LORD is what makes rich.
    • Toil adds nothing to the blessing of the LORD.
    • The Hebrew is ambiguous whether the meaning is that no sorrow is added with the blessing or that human toil adds nothing to it.
  23. 10:23
    • Carrying out a wicked scheme is like sport to a fool.
    • Wisdom is like sport to a man of understanding.
  24. 10:24
    • What the wicked man dreads will come upon him.
    • The desire of the righteous will be granted.
  25. 10:25
    • When the storm wind passes by, the wicked is no more.
    • The righteous is an everlasting foundation.
  26. 10:26
    • Vinegar is unpleasant to the teeth.
    • Smoke is unpleasant to the eyes.
    • The sluggard is like these to those who send him.
  27. 10:27
    • The fear of the LORD adds days to life.
    • The years of the wicked will be cut short.
  28. 10:28
    • The hope of the righteous is gladness.
    • The expectation of the wicked will perish.
  29. 10:29
    • The way of the LORD is a stronghold to the person of integrity.
    • The way of the LORD is ruin to those who do evil.
  30. 10:30
    • The righteous will never be shaken.
    • The wicked will not dwell in the land.
  31. 10:31
    • The mouth of the righteous produces wisdom.
    • The perverse tongue will be cut off.
  32. 10:32
    • The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable.
    • The mouth of the wicked speaks perverse things.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

10:1
Chapter 10 begins a new section of the book. Chapters 1–9 are long connected poems; from here on Proverbs becomes a collection of short, self-contained sayings, almost all of them two lines that set one thing against its opposite. They are not arranged by subject, so the topic can change completely from one verse to the next. "The proverbs of Solomon" is a heading over the collection that follows, not part of the saying in verse 1. Naming the father in one line and the mother in the other is a standard Hebrew poetic pairing meaning the parents together, not two different reactions.
10:2
The word translated "righteousness" (Hebrew tsedaqah) covers straight dealing between people (honesty, fairness, generosity) as much as inner goodness; in later centuries it came to be used for giving to the poor. "Treasures of wickedness" means wealth obtained by fraud, theft or violence. The paired categories "righteous" and "wicked" run through the whole chapter.
10:3
"Soul" here translates nephesh, which in Hebrew means the appetite, the throat, the living self, the line is about literal hunger, not about a spirit. The second half is uncertain: the Hebrew word can mean "craving" (hence "he thwarts what the wicked crave") or "substance, property" (hence the KJV's "casteth away the substance of the wicked").
10:4
A "slack hand" is a hand hanging loose and limp, doing nothing. "Diligent" means steady and careful about work.
10:5
Grain was cut and gathered in a short window in the early summer heat and had to be brought in before it was lost. A whole year's food depended on those few weeks, so sleeping through them was not general idleness but a ruinous failure at the one moment that counted.
10:6
The second line is ambiguous in Hebrew and can be read either way: the wicked man's mouth conceals the violence he intends, or violence covers his mouth, overwhelms and silences him. The identical line reappears in verse 11.
10:7
Where ordinary people left no written records, a person continued to exist in the memory and repetition of their name. "Blessed" is concrete: a good person's name went on being spoken in blessings, "may you be like so-and-so", while a bad name decayed, the verb being the one used of a corpse rotting.
10:8
"Heart" in Hebrew means the mind: the place where a person thinks, weighs and decides, not where they feel. A "wise heart" is sound judgment. KJV's "prating" is old English for babbling; the Hebrew is literally "a fool of lips."
10:9
In the Bible, the way a person "walks" means the way that person lives, day after day. It is not about feet.
10:10
Winking was a recognized gesture of conspiracy, a sly signal to an accomplice while the victim was still watching, unaware. The second line here simply repeats verse 8; the ancient Greek translation has a different line at this point ("but he who reproves openly makes peace"), so what the second half originally read is disputed.
10:11
A well or spring meant running water in a dry country, a source that keeps producing and keeps people and animals alive, as opposed to a cistern that holds only what is poured into it.
10:12
"Cover" here does not mean hiding a crime from justice. It is the opposite of exposing: passing over an offense rather than publishing it and keeping the quarrel alive.
10:13
Beating with a rod was ordinary discipline for children and servants in this society, and Proverbs uses it throughout as the standard image for correction applied to someone who will not take it any other way.
10:15
Walled, fortified towns were where people took shelter when raiders or an army came; those with no access to one had no protection at all. The line is an observation of how wealth and poverty actually functioned, stated without comment.
10:16
"Labour" here means what the labor earns, wages, gain. The Hebrew word translated "sin" in the second line also means the penalty for sin, so the line can be read either as "leads to sin" or "leads to punishment"; both senses sit in the one word.
10:17
The King James word is "reproof." It means being told you did wrong so you can fix it.
10:18
Circulating a damaging report was more than gossip in a small settlement, where a person's standing determined whether others would trade with them, marry into their family, or accept their word in a dispute.
10:19
"There wanteth not sin" means sin is not lacking, that is, sin is present. In 1611 English "want" meant to lack, not to desire.
10:20
Before coins existed, silver was weighed out as payment. "Choice" or refined silver had been purified of other metals and was the most valuable form of it. The comparison is to money, not to jewelry.
10:21
The verb translated "feed" is the one used of a shepherd pasturing a flock, leading animals to grazing and keeping them alive. In the second line the Hebrew literally says fools die for lack of "heart," which as in verse 8 means mind or judgment.
10:22
The Hebrew word behind "sorrow" also means painful toil. The second line accordingly reads either "he adds no pain along with it" or "and toil adds nothing to it": that is, the wealth comes from the blessing rather than from grinding work. Both readings are defended.
10:23
"Sport" means play or laughter, something done for amusement. The word rendered "mischief" means deliberately schemed wrongdoing, often something shameful or sexual; it is not childish naughtiness.
10:25
The whirlwind is the sudden violent storm that sweeps through and flattens whatever is not anchored. The contrast is architectural: the wicked are blown off, while the righteous is the foundation, the part of a building still standing when everything above it has been stripped away. The Hebrew can equally be read as "is founded forever."
10:26
Vinegar is soured wine, the cheap drink of laborers; on the teeth it is the sensation of biting into something acid. Houses had open cooking fires and no chimney, so smoke in the eyes was a daily irritation everyone had felt. "Those that send him" are people who dispatch a messenger, the only means of moving news or business, and are left waiting.
10:27
"Fear of the LORD" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning awe and serious regard, the attitude taken toward something vastly greater than oneself. It is this book's standard term for that whole posture, and does not mean being frightened.
10:29
The word behind "strength" means a stronghold or refuge, a fortified place to run into. "The way of the LORD" is ambiguous and can mean either the way the LORD himself acts or the way of life he lays down for people.
10:30
"The earth" translates a word that also, and here more likely, means "the land", the territory of Israel, held as a family inheritance handed down through generations. Being removed from it meant losing the ground a family's whole existence rested on.
10:31
"Froward," in the King James wording, is old English for twisted or perverse. The verb in "cut out" is the one regularly used of cutting a person off from the community; applied to a tongue it is a deliberately harsh image, and translations differ between "cut out" and "cut off."
10:32
"Acceptable" translates a word for what pleases or is favorably received, used elsewhere of an offering being accepted. Here it means words that fit the moment and the person hearing them.

Read Proverbs 10