Proverbs 24: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter collects sayings that contrast wisdom with wickedness: wisdom builds a house, gives strength, and guides war plans, while plotting evil ends in ruin. It warns against envying evil people, gloating when an enemy falls, holding back from rescuing those being dragged off to death, showing partiality in court, and paying back a wrong with a wrong. Verse 23 marks the start of a further set of "sayings of the wise," which closes with a picture of a lazy man's overgrown field and the poverty that follows a habit of sleeping in.

Claim by Claim

1. 24:1
   • The hearer is told not to be envious of evil men.
   • The hearer is told not to desire to be with evil men.
2. 24:2
   • The heart of evil men plots violent destruction.
   • The lips of evil men speak of trouble.
3. 24:3
   • A house is built by wisdom.
   • A house is established by understanding.
4. 24:4
   • By knowledge the rooms of a house are filled.
   • The rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.
5. 24:5
   • A wise man is strong.
   • A man of knowledge increases strength.
6. 24:6
   • War is to be waged by wise guidance.
   • Safety is found in a multitude of counselors.
7. 24:7
   • Wisdom is too high for a fool.
   • The fool does not open his mouth in the gate.
8. 24:8
   • The one who devises to do evil will be called a schemer.
9. 24:9
   • The scheming of folly is sin.
   • The scorner is an abomination to men.
10. 24:10
    • If a person faints in the day of adversity, his strength is small.
11. 24:11
    • The hearer is addressed about delivering those who are being taken to death.
    • The hearer is addressed about those staggering toward slaughter.
    • The verse concerns whether the hearer holds back from acting, which the King James renders as forbearing to deliver.
12. 24:12
    • If a person says, 'Behold, we did not know this,' the claim is challenged.
    • The one who weighs hearts perceives it.
    • The one who keeps your soul knows it.
    • He will render to every man according to his works.
13. 24:13
    • The son is told to eat honey because it is good.
    • The honeycomb is sweet to the taste.
14. 24:14
    • Knowing wisdom is likewise good for the soul.
    • If you have found wisdom, there is a future outcome.
    • Your hope will not be cut off.
15. 24:15
    • The wicked man is told not to lie in wait against the dwelling of the righteous.
    • The wicked man is told not to destroy the resting place of the righteous.
16. 24:16
    • A righteous man falls seven times and rises up again.
    • The wicked stumble into calamity.
17. 24:17
    • The hearer is told not to rejoice when his enemy falls.
    • The hearer is told not to let his heart be glad when his enemy stumbles.
18. 24:18
    • The LORD may see such gloating.
    • It would be evil in the LORD's eyes.
    • The LORD would turn his anger away from the enemy.
19. 24:19
    • The hearer is told not to fret because of evildoers.
    • The hearer is told not to be envious of the wicked.
20. 24:20
    • There will be no future outcome for the evil man.
    • The lamp of the wicked will be put out.
21. 24:21
    • The son is told to fear the LORD.
    • The son is told to fear the king.
    • The son is told not to associate with those who change or rebel.
22. 24:22
    • Their calamity will rise suddenly.
    • No one knows the ruin that comes from both of them.
23. 24:23
    • These sayings also belong to the wise.
    • Showing partiality in judgment is not good.
24. 24:24
    • The one who says to the wicked, 'You are righteous,' will be cursed by peoples.
    • Nations will abhor such a person.
25. 24:25
    • It will be pleasant for those who rebuke the wicked.
    • A good blessing will come upon those who rebuke.
26. 24:26
    • The one who gives a right answer is kissed on the lips.
27. 24:27
    • The hearer is told to prepare his work outside.
    • The hearer is told to make it ready for himself in the field.
    • The hearer is told to build his house afterward.
28. 24:28
    • The hearer is told not to be a witness against his neighbor without cause.
    • The hearer is told not to deceive with his lips.
29. 24:29
    • The hearer is told not to say, 'I will do to him as he has done to me.'
    • The hearer is told not to say, 'I will repay the man according to his work.'
30. 24:30
    • The speaker passed by the field of a lazy man.
    • The speaker passed by the vineyard of a man lacking sense.
31. 24:31
    • The field had all grown over with thorns.
    • Nettles had covered its surface.
    • Its stone wall was broken down.
32. 24:32
    • The speaker looked at it.
    • The speaker set his heart to consider it.
    • The speaker saw and received instruction.
33. 24:33
    • A little sleep.
    • A little slumber.
    • A little folding of the hands to lie down.
34. 24:34
    • Poverty will come upon you like a prowler.
    • Your want will come like an armed man.

Words Worth Explaining

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

24:1

Envy means wanting what someone else has. It can make you feel angry inside.

24:2

In Hebrew, the heart is where a person thinks, decides and plans, not merely where he feels. "Their hearts plan violence" means violence is what their minds are set on working out.

24:3

The Hebrew word for "house" covers the building, the household living in it, and the family line that carries on. All three senses are in play here and again in verse 27.

24:6

Counselors were trusted people who helped a king make big choices.

24:7

The open space just inside a town's gate was where public business was done: legal cases were heard, agreements were witnessed, and the elders gave rulings. A man with nothing to say there had no voice in the running of the town.

24:9

A mocker (the King James word is "scorner") is a recurring figure in Proverbs: not a joker, but someone who treats correction and instruction with contempt.

24:11

The picture is of prisoners being marched off to execution. The saying assumes the hearer is in a position to intervene, to speak up or testify for them, rather than merely watching, and that some of those condemned do not deserve it.

24:12

"Weighs hearts" is the image of a balance scale: a person's inner thoughts and motives are set on the scales and measured against what he claims. The same picture appears elsewhere in Proverbs.

24:13

Honey was the sweetest food people had. There was no sugar then, so honey was a treat everyone knew.

24:14

"Future" translates a Hebrew word meaning "latter end", what comes afterwards, including one's descendants and how one's life finally turns out. The same word lies behind "no future" in verse 20.

24:15

Wicked means doing bad things on purpose. A good, or righteous, person tries to live the right way.

24:16

Seven here stands for a full or repeated number of times rather than an exact count: however often he goes down, he gets back up.

24:18

The Hebrew says only that the LORD may turn his anger away "from him": that is, from the enemy. Whether that anger then falls on the person who gloated is left unsaid, and readers have argued over it for centuries.

24:20

A lamp kept burning in the house stood for the household's life and its continuing line. To have your lamp put out was for the family itself to come to an end.

24:21

The Hebrew phrase behind "people bent on rebellion" (King James: "them that are given to change") is uncertain. It is usually taken to mean those out to overthrow the established order, but it has also been read as those who keep switching sides.

24:22

"The two of them" most naturally means the LORD and the king named in verse 21, the two powers able to bring a rebel down. Some read it instead as ruin coming from either one of them.

24:23

This line is a heading, not a saying: it marks the start of a short further collection of sayings from the wise, added on to the longer collection that began at 22:17. "Taking sides" is literally, in Hebrew, "recognising faces", deciding a case by who is standing in front of you rather than by the facts.

24:24

The setting is a court. Declaring a guilty person innocent means a verdict handed down by a judge or backed by a witness, not a private opinion about someone's character.

24:25

"Correct" here has its legal sense: to convict, to give a ruling against the guilty party, the opposite of the false verdict in verse 24.

24:26

A kiss on the lips was a greeting between friends and equals and a mark of honor and loyalty, not a romantic gesture. The point is that a straight answer is received the way such a kiss is.

24:27

In a farming village, "building your house" meant setting up a household, marrying and starting a family, as much as putting up a building. The advice is to get the land producing first, since the land is what the household will live on.

24:28

Both halves of this saying are about giving evidence in court. "Without a good reason" means with no real grounds for the charge.

24:30

Vines take several years to come into bearing and need pruning every season, so a ruined vineyard showed years of neglect at a single glance.

24:31

Field and vineyard walls were built from stones cleared off the ground and stacked without mortar. They marked the boundary and kept animals out; keeping them in repair was routine work, and a breached wall left the crop open to anything that wandered in.

24:33

These lines sound like the lazy man's own excuse. The same words appear earlier, in Proverbs 6.

24:34

The King James "one that travelleth" renders a Hebrew word generally understood as a vagrant or a highway robber, and "armed man" is literally "a man of the shield." Both images are of poverty arriving suddenly and by force rather than creeping up.