Proverbs 25: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This chapter opens a further collection of Solomon's proverbs, gathered and copied by officials of King Hezekiah of Judah. The first group of sayings deals with kings and how to behave in a royal court, and with handling a dispute against a neighbor. The rest are comparisons drawn from ordinary life (honey, cool snow at harvest, clouds without rain, a broken tooth, a city without walls) applied to speech, trust, self-control, and how to treat an enemy who is hungry or thirsty.

Claim by Claim

1. 25:1
   • These also are proverbs of Solomon.
   • The men of Hezekiah copied out these proverbs.
   • Hezekiah was king of Judah.
2. 25:2
   • It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.
   • It is the glory of kings to search out a matter.
3. 25:3
   • The heavens are high.
   • The earth is deep.
   • The heart of kings cannot be searched out.
4. 25:4
   • Remove the dross from the silver.
   • When the dross is removed, a vessel comes forth for the metalworker.
5. 25:5
   • Remove the wicked from before the king.
   • When the wicked are removed, the king's throne is established in righteousness.
6. 25:6
   • Do not glorify yourself in the presence of the king.
   • Do not stand in the place of great men.
7. 25:7
   • It is better to be told, Come up here.
   • It is worse to be put lower in the presence of a noble.
   • The noble is one your own eyes have seen.
8. 25:8
   • Do not go out hastily to contend.
   • Otherwise you will not know what to do in the end of it.
   • In the end your neighbor may put you to shame.
9. 25:9
   • Argue your case with your neighbor himself.
   • Do not disclose another person's secret.
10. 25:10
    • If you disclose a secret, the one who hears it may shame you.
    • Your bad reputation will not go away.
11. 25:11
    • A word spoken at the right time is like apples of gold in settings of silver.
12. 25:12
    • A wise man's rebuke to a listening ear is like a gold ring and an ornament of fine gold.
13. 25:13
    • A faithful messenger is to those who send him like the cold of snow in the time of harvest.
    • A faithful messenger refreshes the soul of his masters.
14. 25:14
    • A man who boasts of a gift he does not give is like clouds and wind without rain.
15. 25:15
    • By long patience a ruler is persuaded.
    • A soft tongue breaks bone.
16. 25:16
    • If you have found honey, eat only what is enough for you.
    • Otherwise you will be filled with it and vomit it.
17. 25:17
    • Set your foot rarely in your neighbor's house.
    • Otherwise he will have his fill of you and hate you.
18. 25:18
    • A man who testifies falsely against his neighbor is a club, a sword, and a sharp arrow.
19. 25:19
    • Trust in a treacherous man in the day of trouble is like a broken tooth and a foot that gives way.
20. 25:20
    • Singing songs to a heavy heart is like taking off a garment on a cold day.
    • Singing songs to a heavy heart is like vinegar poured on soda.
21. 25:21
    • If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat.
    • If your enemy is thirsty, give him water to drink.
22. 25:22
    • By doing so you heap burning coals on his head.
    • The LORD will reward you.
23. 25:23
    • The north wind brings forth rain.
    • Angry faces and a tongue that speaks in secret go together, and which one produces the other is not stated plainly.
24. 25:24
    • It is better to dwell on a corner of the roof.
    • It is worse to dwell with a contentious woman in a shared house.
25. 25:25
    • Good news from a distant land is like cold water to a weary soul.
26. 25:26
    • A righteous man who gives way before the wicked is like a muddied spring and a ruined well.
27. 25:27
    • It is not good to eat much honey.
    • For a man to search out his own glory is not glory.
    • The second line of the verse is obscure: it says that the searching out of their glory is glory.
28. 25:28
    • A man who has no restraint over his spirit is like a city broken open and without a wall.

Words Worth Explaining

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

25:1

Hezekiah ruled Judah about 715-686 BC, roughly 250 years after Solomon. "The men of Hezekiah" were the scribes and scholars of his court, whose work was to collect and copy older writings. The line marks the start of a new collection within the book; chapters 25-29 are what these copyists assembled.

25:2

A king in those days was also the chief judge. "Digging into a matter" meant hearing a hard case and working out what really happened.

25:4

Silver ore was melted so that the impurities in it, the dross, rose to the surface and could be skimmed off. Until that was done the metal could not be worked, so the refining was not a finishing touch but the thing that made a vessel possible at all.

25:6

At a king's table the seats were arranged by rank. The closer you sat to the king, the more important you were. Taking a good seat you had not earned was a real risk.

25:7

At a royal court and at feasts, seats were assigned by rank, with the places nearest the king counting as the highest. To be moved down the line in public was a visible loss of standing, which is why it is worth taking a low seat and being called up. The last phrase, "a noble you have seen with your own eyes," is placed differently by different translators: in Hebrew the words "what your eyes have seen" can end this verse or begin the next one, giving "do not hastily bring what you have seen to court."

25:8

Court was not a courthouse. The town's respected older men sat in the open gateway of the city and settled arguments there, in front of everybody.

25:11

The exact object is unknown. The words describe gold fruit set in or against silver, perhaps ornamental fruit resting in a silver dish or basket, perhaps gold inlay worked into silver carving. Either way the point is a costly, carefully made piece of craftsmanship, where each part sets off the other.

25:12

The Hebrew word covers a ring worn in the ear or in the nose; both were common items of gold jewelry. The image is of something valuable placed on the ear, matching the ear that listens.

25:13

Harvest fell in the hottest, driest part of the year, with no rain at all. Snow was gathered from the mountains and packed away to cool drinks, a rare luxury in that season, which is the point of the comparison.

25:14

In that dry land, farmers watched the sky for rain clouds because their crops depended on them. Clouds that blew past without dropping any rain were a sharp disappointment.

25:15

"Breaking a bone" was a proverbial way of saying that something soft overcomes something hard. The bone stands for stubborn resistance, not for injury.

25:16

There was no sugar. Honey was the sweetest thing most people ever tasted, and finding a wild honeycomb was a treat worth remembering.

25:18

A maul is a heavy war club. Under Israelite law a case was decided by the testimony of witnesses rather than by investigation, so a lying witness could destroy a neighbor's property, freedom, or life as surely as a weapon.

25:19

A foot out of joint means the bone has slipped out of place. It hurts too much to stand on.

25:20

"Nitre" is natron, a natural mineral soda dug from dry lake beds and used as a cleaning agent. Pouring vinegar on it makes it fizz violently and ruins it. Some translators instead read the Hebrew as vinegar poured on a wound; the two readings differ by very little in the text.

25:22

The image was already proverbial and its sense is disputed. It has been connected to an Egyptian ritual in which a person carried a pan of burning coals on the head as a public sign of repentance, and also to the ordinary burning sensation of shame. The verse itself does not explain it.

25:23

In Israel the rain came off the Mediterranean from the west; the north wind was the dry one. The Hebrew verb can mean either "brings forth" or "drives away," so translations differ on whether the north wind produces rain or clears it, and correspondingly on whether the angry face causes the gossip or stops it. This rendering follows the first; the King James takes the second.

25:24

Houses had flat roofs used for sleeping, drying grain, and sitting in the evening, reached by an outside stair. A corner of the roof meant a cramped, exposed spot with no shelter from sun or weather, deliberately the least desirable place in the house.

25:25

Letters traveled only as fast as a person could walk or ride. News from a distant country might take months to arrive, and until it came you simply did not know.

25:26

In a dry country a spring or well was the source of a whole community's drinking water, and fouling one was a public disaster, not a private loss. The comparison is to something everyone depended on being ruined for everyone.

25:27

The second half of this verse is damaged or unclear in the Hebrew. It reads roughly "and the searching out of their glory is glory"; translators supply a negative or an extra word to make sense of it, which is why versions of this line differ so widely.

25:28

Towns were protected by thick stone walls with gates that shut at night. A city with broken walls had nothing to keep enemies out. Anyone could simply walk in.