Today’s Passage: Proverbs 10
Something changes when we open this chapter, and it is worth pausing to notice it before we read a word. For nine chapters a father has been speaking in long, unbroken appeals, drawing his son close and pleading with him paragraph by paragraph to choose wisdom over folly. Now that changes. Here begins the great collection the book has been promising, “the proverbs of Solomon,” and instead of flowing speeches we are handed a treasury of short, self-standing sayings, wisdom cut down to two lines apiece, each one polished like a stone you can turn over in your hand. You do not read a chapter like this the way you read a story, hurrying to find out what happens next, because nothing happens next; each verse stands on its own. Read it instead the way you would sip something rich, a handful of sayings at a time, letting them settle, noticing how the same few themes keep coming around like old friends. And they do come around, again and again in this chapter: the power of the tongue for life or for ruin, the reward of the working hand and the poverty of the idle one, and over it all the two roads of the righteous and the wicked running side by side to two very different ends.
As you read, hold this: The righteous and the wicked walk two roads that end in two places, and the tongue reveals which road a person is on.
Context The world of Proverbs 10
These short sayings have a name; scholars call them the sentence proverbs, because each is a single sentence complete in itself, needing nothing before it or after it to make its point. From here to nearly the end of the book they come one upon another, hundreds of them, and the wise reader learns not to gulp them down but to taste them slowly, a few at a sitting.
Most of the proverbs in this chapter are built on a simple and powerful pattern the scholars call antithetic, which is a long word for a plain thing: the saying sets two people side by side and lets the contrast do the teaching. Listen for the little word “but” that turns in the middle of almost every verse, swinging the door from one kind of person to the other. The righteous, but the wicked. The diligent, but the idle. The wise heart, but the foolish lips. Over and over the proverb holds up two lives at once and asks, without ever quite asking, which one will you be.
And though these sayings seem scattered, a few great themes rise up out of them and knit the chapter together. One is the astonishing power of the tongue, for these verses come back again and again to the mouth and the lips, calling the words of the righteous a fountain of life and choice silver, and warning that the mouth of the wicked hides violence and that a flood of careless talk cannot help but sin. Another is the difference between the working hand and the idle one, the son who gathers in summer against the son who sleeps through the harvest. And beneath them all runs the deepest theme of the book, that the righteous and the wicked are walking two different roads, and that these roads, however alike they may look for a while, do not arrive at the same place.
Proverbs 10:1–7 (BSB)
¹ The proverbs of Solomon: A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother. ² Ill-gotten treasures profit nothing, but righteousness brings deliverance from death. ³ The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry, but He denies the craving of the wicked. ⁴ Idle hands make one poor, but diligent hands bring wealth. ⁵ He who gathers in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son. ⁶ Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. ⁷ The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.
Right away you can feel how these sayings mean to be read, each one a small door opening onto the same wide truth from a slightly different side. The very first proverb sets the whole tone, showing us a wise son who brings joy to a father and a foolish son who brings grief to a mother, and in doing so it quietly reminds us that no life is lived alone; the way a person walks lands on the hearts of the people who love him. From there the sayings begin to lay the two roads side by side, and the first thing they tell us is that the two roads do not pay the same wage in the end. Treasure gotten by crooked means looks like gain but profits nothing when death comes calling, while righteousness, which stores up no such treasure, turns out to hold the one thing that delivers. The wicked man’s craving is left unfilled, but the LORD does not let the righteous go hungry, and there is a great comfort tucked into that line, that the God who feeds the birds keeps an eye on the pantry of the person who walks with Him.
Then the sayings turn to the hand, and here is the second of our great themes coming around for the first time. Idle hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring him wealth, and the next proverb paints the same lesson as a picture you can see: one son out in the field gathering while the sun is high, the other asleep in the shade while the harvest stands ripe and waiting. Wisdom in this book is never only a matter of the head; it shows up in whether a person gets up and does the work the season is asking of him. And notice how, even here among hands and harvests, the theme of the tongue slips in, for the sixth verse tells us that blessings rest on the head of the righteous while the mouth of the wicked hides violence beneath its words. The chapter is already teaching us to listen closely to what a mouth is really carrying. It ends this first handful with a saying to sit with a long time, that the memory of the righteous is itself a blessing while the very name of the wicked rots away. A good life leaves a fragrance behind it that outlasts the person, and that, the proverb says, is worth more than any treasure a wicked man ever buried.
Proverbs 10:8–14 (BSB)
⁸ A wise heart will receive commandments, but foolish lips will come to ruin. ⁹ He who walks in integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out. ¹⁰ He who winks the eye causes grief, and foolish lips will come to ruin. ¹¹ The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. ¹² Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers all transgressions. ¹³ Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks judgment. ¹⁴ The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of the fool invites destruction.
Here the theme of the tongue rises up and takes the center of the chapter, and I want us to slow down and let these sayings speak together, because they are all circling the same wonder: how much of a person’s whole life pours out through the small opening of the mouth. See how the wise heart and the foolish lips are set against each other, the one quietly receiving instruction, the other talking its way to ruin. See how the same warning about foolish lips comes twice within a few verses, as if wisdom knows we need to hear it more than once. And then comes the loveliest saying of the group, that the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, a picture of words that refresh and revive everyone who comes near, like cool water in a dry country. Against it stands the mouth of the wicked, which hides violence under its surface, so that the very same instrument can be a spring of life or a covered pit, depending on the heart it is drawing from. The lashon, pronounced lah-SHOHN. Strong's H3956, tongue, language, speech. This is the word that runs like a bright thread through the whole chapter, though our English translations spread it out among the mouth and the lips and the tongue. Lashon is simply the tongue, that small muscle behind the teeth, and yet the Hebrew mind saw in it something far larger than a piece of the body. The tongue was the organ of speech, and speech was where the hidden heart came out into the open, so to speak of a person’s lashon was to speak of the very power by which he blessed or cursed, healed or wounded, gave life or dealt death. That is why this chapter can call the tongue of the righteous choice silver, something rare and precious and beautiful, while warning that a perverse tongue will be cut out. The book of Proverbs will keep returning to this word, and later it will say the plainest thing of all, that death and life are in the power of the lashon. When you hold that truth beside this chapter, you begin to understand why wisdom watches the mouth so closely. The tongue is small, but nothing else we own can do so much good or so much harm, and a person schooled in the fear of the LORD learns, before almost anything else, to keep a careful hand upon it. , these verses keep telling us, is never a small thing.
And right in the middle of this cluster sits a proverb so full it would take a lifetime to spend, the twelfth verse: hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers all transgressions. Hatred is forever raking up old offenses, poking at wounds, keeping quarrels alive because it wants them alive. Love does the opposite; love covers, not by pretending the wrong never happened but by refusing to broadcast it, by choosing to forgive rather than to expose, by throwing a cloak over a brother’s fault instead of parading it through the street. This is one of those sayings the New Testament could not leave alone, and we will see in a moment how the apostles took it up. For now simply feel the width of it. In a chapter so concerned with what the mouth pours out, here is the mouth at its most Christlike, not stirring the pot but covering an offense in love. The wise store up knowledge quietly, the proverb says, but the fool’s mouth invites his own ruin, and between those two mouths lies the whole difference between a life that heals and a life that harms.
Proverbs 10:15–21 (BSB)
¹⁵ The wealth of the rich man is his fortified city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor. ¹⁶ The labor of the righteous leads to life, but the gain of the wicked brings punishment. ¹⁷ Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but he who ignores reproof goes astray. ¹⁸ The one who conceals hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool. ¹⁹ When words are many, sin is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise. ²⁰ The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked has little worth. ²¹ The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of judgment.
These sayings gather up the threads we have been following and weave them a little tighter. The theme of the two destinies deepens here, for the fifteenth and sixteenth verses look honestly at wealth and poverty without ever making the mistake of thinking that money is the measure of a man. Riches can be a fortified city, a real shelter in a hard world, and poverty can grind a person down; wisdom does not sneer at these plain facts. But the very next line quietly reorders everything by telling us where each road actually leads, for the labor of the righteous leads to life while the gain of the wicked leads only to punishment. What a thing looks like in the moment and where it finally arrives are two different questions, and the wise learn to ask the second one. So too with correction: the person who heeds instruction is walking the path to life, while the one who shrugs off reproof wanders off it, and the difference between them is nothing more than whether they were willing to be told.
Then the tongue returns once more, and these are some of the richest sayings in the whole book about the words we speak. Watch how they move. First a warning against the hidden tongue, the lying lips that conceal hatred and the fool who goes about spreading slander. Then a warning against the flood of talk, for when words are many, sin is never far behind, and the person who knows when to hold his lips has learned something the chatterer never will. And then, rising above the warnings, a saying of pure praise: the tongue of the righteous is choice silver, while the heart of the wicked, for all its scheming, is worth little. Do you see how the mouth keeps giving away the heart behind it? The proverb ends this group by returning to that fountain we saw before, telling us that the lips of the righteous feed many, nourishing whole crowds of people with true and gracious words, while fools starve and even die for the plain lack of the judgment they refused to receive. The righteous mouth, it turns out, is not only a fountain but a table, spread wide enough to feed a multitude.
Proverbs 10:22–27 (BSB)
²² The blessing of the LORD enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it. ²³ The fool delights in shameful conduct, but a man of understanding has wisdom. ²⁴ What the wicked man dreads will overtake him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. ²⁵ When the whirlwind passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are secure forever. ²⁶ Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the slacker to those who send him. ²⁷ The fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be cut short.
At the head of this handful stands one of the great sayings of the chapter, and it deserves a long, quiet look: the blessing of the LORD enriches, and He adds no sorrow to it. There is a kind of getting that comes with a hook in it, wealth that arrives dragging worry and guilt and sleepless nights behind it, but the true enriching that comes from the hand of the LORD carries no such shadow. When God blesses, He blesses cleanly, and the gift does not turn bitter in the hand. Set that beside the earlier warnings about ill-gotten treasure and you feel the whole point: it is not how much a person gathers but whose blessing rests upon it that decides whether it will be a joy or a sorrow to him. Here is a saying to praise God for, that His good gifts come without a sting.
The rest of this group returns us to the two roads and follows them a little further toward their ends. The fool takes actual delight in the shameful things a wise man would be ashamed of, and that tells you which road he has chosen more surely than any map. Then comes a saying that must have comforted God’s people in many a dark season, that what the wicked man dreads will finally overtake him while the deep desire of the righteous will in the end be granted, for the storm that scatters the wicked like chaff leaves the righteous still standing, secure forever on a foundation the whirlwind cannot reach. And lest the chapter grow too solemn, wisdom drops in one of its wonderfully homely pictures, comparing the lazy messenger to vinegar on the teeth and smoke in the eyes, that little wince and sting you cannot ignore, so that anyone who has ever sent an errand by a sluggard laughs in recognition. The group closes by naming the root of the whole long life it keeps describing, that the fear of the LORD prolongs a person’s days while the years of the wicked are cut short; the two roads differ not only in where they end but in how far they are given to run.
Proverbs 10:28–32 (BSB)
²⁸ The hope of the righteous is joy, but the expectations of the wicked will perish. ²⁹ The way of the LORD is a refuge to the upright, but destruction awaits those who do evil. ³⁰ The righteous will never be shaken, but the wicked will not inhabit the land. ³¹ The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be cut out. ³² The lips of the righteous know what is fitting, but the mouth of the wicked is perverse.
The chapter draws to its close by gathering its two great themes into one final, ringing set of contrasts, and it is fitting that it should end where so much of it has lived, at the mouth. But first it lifts our eyes to hope, telling us that the hope of the righteous ripens into joy while the expectations of the wicked simply perish, coming to nothing at the last. There is all the difference in the world between a hope anchored in God and a hope propped on anything else, for the one bears fruit and the other rots on the branch. The same LORD whose way is a refuge to the upright is the undoing of those who set themselves against Him, and so the righteous, sheltered in that way, will never be shaken, planted so deep that no storm can tear them loose, while the wicked will not so much as keep their footing in the land. These are the two roads followed all the way home, and we are meant to feel, standing at the end of them, how much hangs on which one we are walking.
And then the last two sayings bring us back to the tongue one final time, sealing the whole chapter with its dominant theme. The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, drawing up good things the way a deep well draws up clean water, and his lips know what is fitting, that rare and beautiful skill of saying the right thing at the right moment; but the perverse tongue, wisdom warns, will be cut out, silenced at the last. So the chapter that has watched the mouth so closely from beginning to end leaves us with the mouth, and with a question we can hardly avoid. Everything these thirty-two sayings have told us about the two roads finally shows up on the tongue, in the words that spill out of us when we are not guarding them. The tsaddiq, pronounced tsah-DEEK. Strong's H6662, righteous, just, one who is in the right. If the tongue is the word that runs through this chapter, tsaddiq is the person who stands at the center of it, for hardly a verse goes by without holding up the righteous one against the wicked. A tsaddiq is someone who is right, right with God and right with his neighbor, a person whose life lines up with the way things ought to be. The word carries the sense of straightness, of a life that matches the measuring line, and the whole chapter has been showing us what such a life looks like from the outside: a mouth that feeds many, a memory that blesses, a hope that ripens into joy, a footing that no storm can shake. We should be careful not to imagine the tsaddiq as someone flawless who has earned his standing, for the Scriptures know of no such person apart from grace. He is rather the one who fears the LORD and walks in that fear, and whose life, watered by that fear, begins to bear the good fruit these proverbs describe. When the New Testament announces that God justifies the ungodly and counts them righteous through faith, it is filling this old and honored word with its deepest meaning, so that the truly tsaddiq one turns out to be the person God Himself has made right. and the wicked walk two roads that end in two places, and it is the tongue, more than almost anything else, that quietly reveals which road a person is on.
Study notes Going deeper
Of all the threads in this chapter, the two that reach farthest into the rest of Scripture are the power of the tongue and the love that covers a fault, and it is worth following each of them a little way to see how the whole Bible keeps taking them up. When Proverbs tells us that the tongue holds life and death and warns that a flood of words cannot help but sin, it is planting a seed that grows into one of the most vivid passages in the New Testament, where James picks up this very theme and will not let us set it down easily.
"In the same way, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it boasts of great things. Consider how small a spark sets a great forest ablaze. The tongue also is a fire, a world of wickedness among the parts of the body. It pollutes the whole person, sets the course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell." James 3:5–6 (BSB)
Hear how James takes the small tongue of Proverbs and shows us just how much fire that small thing can set loose, and you begin to understand why this chapter watches the mouth so carefully. But the tongue in the hand of the righteous is not only a danger to be guarded; it is a fountain to be poured out, and so the New Testament balances the warning with a calling, telling us plainly what the righteous mouth is for.
"Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building up the one in need and bringing grace to those who listen." Ephesians 4:29 (BSB)
That is the fountain of life and the lips that feed many, said again in the language of the church, words chosen not to tear down but to build up, not to wound but to bring grace. And the other great saying of this chapter, that love covers all transgressions, is lifted almost word for word into the letters of the apostles, where it becomes one of the tenderest instructions in all of Scripture.
"Above all, love one another deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." 1 Peter 4:8 (BSB)
There is the twelfth verse of our chapter, carried across the centuries and set at the heart of the church’s life, above all things. Hatred rakes up offenses to keep the quarrel burning; love throws its cloak over them and lets them die. And so this chapter of short sayings, for all that it looks like a scattered handful, turns out to be teaching us the very things the whole Bible cares about most, how to hold our tongues and how to cover one another in love, because the righteous and the wicked walk two roads that end in two places, and the tongue reveals which road a person is on.