Proverbs 27 — As Iron Sharpens Iron

Today’s Passage: Proverbs 27

We are deep now into the long treasury of Solomon’s sayings, and by this point you have learned how to read them, a handful at a sitting, turning each one over slowly. This chapter carries on in that same manner, one polished saying after another, but if you read it patiently you will notice that certain threads keep surfacing out of the scatter and running through the whole. Here is a warning against boasting about a tomorrow you cannot see, and a caution to let someone else do your praising for you. Here, above all, is the chapter’s tender teaching on friendship, that the wounds of a true friend are faithful while the kisses of an enemy are a lie, and that just as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. And here at the close is a long, homely picture of a shepherd who knows his flocks by name, a picture of faithful, attentive care for whatever God has placed in a person’s hands. Read it not for a single argument but for these recurring notes, and let them teach you how to walk humbly, love honestly, and tend faithfully.

As you read, hold this: Hold tomorrow humbly, let a true friend wound you faithfully, and tend with care the flock God has placed in your hands.

Proverbs 27:1–6 (BSB)

¹ Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. ² Let another praise you, and not your own mouth—a stranger, and not your own lips. ³ A stone is heavy and sand is a burden, but aggravation from a fool outweighs them both. ⁴ Wrath is cruel and anger is like a flood, but who can withstand jealousy? ⁵ Better an open rebuke than love that is concealed. ⁶ The wounds of a friend are faithful, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

The chapter opens with a saying that ought to be written over every plan we make, that we should not boast about tomorrow, because we do not know what a single day may bring. There is nothing gloomy in this; it is simply the truth about creatures like us, who can look forward only so far and no further. We speak of next month and next year as though they were ours to spend, and wisdom gently takes us by the sleeve and reminds us that the very next day is a sealed thing, known only to God. A humble person holds his plans loosely, saying under his breath what a wiser voice will later teach the church to say, if the Lord wills, we will do this or that. Then the sayings turn to the mouth, and to a folly we all know from the inside, the folly of praising ourselves. Let another praise you, the proverb says, and not your own mouth. Praise that we pour out over our own heads convinces no one and cheapens whatever it touches; honor is a thing that must be given to us by others, never seized by our own lips, and the person truly worth praising is usually the last one talking about it.

From there the sayings weigh a few heavy things against each other, in that homely way the book loves. A stone is heavy and a load of sand is a burden, but the aggravation of a fool, the proverb says, outweighs them both, as anyone knows who has ever tried to carry a foolish companion through a long day. Wrath is cruel and anger comes on like a flood, and yet even these, the chapter says, are easier to stand against than jealousy, that quiet, corrosive thing that will not be reasoned with. And then we come to the first of the chapter’s great sayings about friendship, and I want us to slow down and receive it well. Better an open rebuke, the proverb says, than love that is concealed. A love that never says the hard word, that hides itself to keep the peace, is a poorer thing than an honest correction spoken to your face. And the reason follows in the sixth verse, one of the most quoted lines in all of Proverbs: the wounds of a friend are faithful, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. A true friend will sometimes hurt you, will say the thing you do not want to hear, and those wounds are faithful, trustworthy, given for your good by someone who loves you. The flatterer, by contrast, kisses and smiles and means you no good at all. Given the choice, the wise learn to prize the friend who wounds them honestly over the enemy who strokes them with lies.

Proverbs 27:7–12 (BSB)

⁷ The soul that is full loathes honey, but to a hungry soul, any bitter thing is sweet. ⁸ Like a bird that strays from its nest is a man who wanders from his home. ⁹ Oil and incense bring joy to the heart, and the counsel of a friend is sweetness to the soul. ¹⁰ Do not forsake your friend or your father’s friend, and do not go to your brother’s house in the day of your calamity; better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away. ¹¹ Be wise, my son, and bring joy to my heart, so that I can answer him who taunts me. ¹² The prudent see danger and take cover, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty.

These sayings carry the friendship thread forward, but they open with a shrewd observation about the human heart that is worth pausing over. The soul that is full loathes even honey, the proverb notices, while to a hungry soul any bitter thing tastes sweet. How true that is of more than food. What we already have in abundance we soon despise, and what we lack we crave until even the plainest thing looks like a feast. It is a quiet warning against the boredom that comes with plenty, and a reminder that gratitude, not more honey, is what keeps the sweet things sweet. Then comes a gentle picture of a man who wanders from his home like a bird strayed from its nest, restless, out of place, away from where he belongs, and we feel the sadness in it, the sense that there is a settledness God means for us that wandering never finds.

And then the friendship sayings return in their fullness. Oil and incense bring joy to the heart, the proverb says, naming two of the good, fragrant pleasures of that world, and then it sets beside them a pleasure sweeter still: the counsel of a friend is sweetness to the soul. There is a particular gladness that comes from a friend who will sit with you and think with you and give you honest counsel, and the chapter ranks it among the richest joys a person can know. So it presses the point home with a plea we should take to heart: do not forsake your friend or your father’s friend, and do not run first to your brother’s house in the day of your trouble, for a neighbor near at hand can be more help than a brother far away. Wisdom is telling us to tend our long friendships, to keep them in good repair across the years, because the tested friend who lives close by will be there in the hour of calamity when a distant relative, however dear, simply cannot be. Then the father’s own voice breaks in for a moment, warm and personal, asking his son to be wise and bring joy to his heart, and the chapter closes this handful with a plain piece of prudence, that the wise see trouble coming and take cover while the simple walk straight into it and pay for it. To see danger and step aside is not cowardice; it is the ordinary good sense of a person who is paying attention.

Proverbs 27:13–18 (BSB)

¹³ Take the garment of him who posts security for a stranger; get collateral if it is for a foreigner. ¹⁴ If one blesses his neighbor with a loud voice early in the morning, it will be counted to him as a curse. ¹⁵ A constant dripping on a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike— ¹⁶ restraining her is like holding back the wind or grasping oil with one’s right hand. ¹⁷ As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. ¹⁸ Whoever tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who looks after his master will be honored.

This group mixes the practical and the profound in the way these chapters delight to do, and it rewards a reader who does not rush. It opens with a hard-headed piece of advice about lending, that you should take the garment of a man who has rashly guaranteed a stranger’s debt, hold his collateral, because a person foolish enough to pledge himself for someone he does not know is a poor risk indeed. Then wisdom smiles a little at human folly with the picture of the man who booms out a loud blessing over his neighbor early in the morning, before the household is even awake, and manages to make his very kindness a nuisance, so that it is counted to him as a curse. Even good things done without sense and timing can land wrong, and the wise learn to read the room and the hour. And then comes one of the book’s famous domestic pictures, comparing a quarrelsome household to the steady, maddening drip of a leaky roof on a rainy day, the kind of small, ceaseless irritation that no one can hold back any more than they can grasp the wind or hold oil in a closed fist. The proverb is not scorning anyone so much as naming the misery of endless strife under one roof, and pleading, by naming it, for peace.

But the jewel of this whole handful, and one of the most beloved sayings in all of Scripture, sits in the seventeenth verse: as iron (בַּרְזֶל) barzel, pronounced bar-ZEL. Strong's H1270, iron. Iron was the hardest metal the ancient world knew, the stuff of axes and plow points and tools that could cut and shape lesser things. When the proverb says that iron sharpens iron, it is choosing its picture with care, for only iron is hard enough to put an edge on iron. You do not sharpen a blade against something soft; you sharpen it against something as hard as itself, and the sharpening happens precisely at the point of resistance, in the friction, in the grinding of one hard thing against another. That is the wisdom hidden in the word. A friend who only ever agrees with us, who yields at every point like soft clay, may be pleasant company but leaves us dull. It is the friend of some substance, the one with convictions of his own that press back against ours, whose honest disagreement and faithful wounds strike sparks off us, who actually sharpens the soul. This proverb tells us not to run from the hardness of a true friend but to thank God for it, because it is exactly that hardness, met against our own, that God uses to hone a person into something keener and more useful than he could ever become alone. sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Picture two blades brought against each other, the friction throwing sparks, each one wearing the other down to a keener edge, and you have the picture of what true friendship does. We are not meant to be sharpened in isolation, filing away at ourselves alone. God sharpens a person mostly through other people, through the honest friend whose questions cut, whose disagreement presses, whose very hardness against our softness leaves us sharper than we were. This is the same truth the whole chapter has been circling, that real friends do not merely comfort us; they improve us, and the improving is not always gentle. Then the chapter grounds the idea in the plainest of images, that whoever tends a fig tree gets to eat its fruit, and whoever faithfully looks after his master will be honored. Sharpening, tending, looking after, faithful attention repaid in due season; the sayings are quietly gathering toward the great picture of diligence that will close the chapter.

Proverbs 27:19–22 (BSB)

¹⁹ As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the true man. ²⁰ Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied; so the eyes of man are never satisfied. ²¹ A crucible for silver and a furnace for gold, but a man is tested by the praise accorded him. ²² Though you grind a fool like grain with mortar and a pestle, yet his folly will not depart from him.

Here the sayings turn inward, from friendship to the self it reveals, and they open with a beautiful and searching line. As water reflects a face, the proverb says, so the heart reflects the true man. Lean over a still pool and you see your own face looking back; look honestly into your own heart, and you see the person you actually are, not the one you show the world. A man is not finally what he claims or what he performs; he is what his heart is, and the heart, if we will only look, gives him back to himself like a mirror. It is a call to the honest self-knowledge that all this wisdom aims at, for we cannot become wise while we are strangers to our own hearts. Then a sobering observation follows, that Sheol and Abaddon, the grave and the place of destruction, are never satisfied, never say enough, and that the eyes of a man are just the same, always wanting more, always restless for the next thing they have not yet seen or had. Left to itself the human craving has no floor; it is a hunger that swallows everything and stays hungry, and only the fear of the LORD ever teaches an eye to rest content.

Then comes a saying that quietly ties back to the beginning of the chapter, where we were told to let another praise us rather than our own mouths. The crucible tests silver and the furnace tests gold, the proverb says, burning away the dross to show what is really there, but a man, it says, is tested by the praise accorded him. What a shrewd thing to notice. Adversity tests many, but praise tests everyone, for the way a person handles being honored reveals what he is made of more surely than almost anything else. Flattery puffs up a fool and turns his head, while the truly wise receive honor and remain humble, unchanged underneath, still knowing exactly who they are before God. And the chapter ends this handful with one of its bluntest and most memorable lines, that you could grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle, pound him like grain, and still his folly would not come out of him. It is wisdom’s honest, almost weary admission that some folly is not a matter of information a person lacks but of a heart set in its ways, and that no amount of pounding by hard circumstance will drive it out of a man who will not let it go. Only a changed heart changes a fool, and that is a work no pestle can do.

Proverbs 27:23–27 (BSB)

²³ Be sure to know the state of your flocks, and pay close attention to your herds; ²⁴ for riches are not forever, nor does a crown endure to every generation. ²⁵ When hay is removed and new growth appears and the grass from the hills is gathered, ²⁶ the lambs will provide you with clothing, and the goats with the price of a field. ²⁷ You will have plenty of goats’ milk to feed you—food for your household and nourishment for your maidservants.

The chapter closes with something different from all that has come before, not a scatter of separate sayings but one long, unhurried picture, and it is worth ending here slowly, for it gathers up much of what the whole chapter has been teaching. Be sure to know the state of your flocks, wisdom says, and pay close attention to your herds. Here is the shepherd who walks among his sheep and actually knows them, who can tell which ewe is ailing and which lamb is thriving, who does not manage his flock from a distance but gives it his careful, daily, personal attention. And the reason the proverb gives is a humbling one: because riches are not forever, and a crown does not pass down endlessly through the generations. Wealth is not a fixed thing you can lean back upon; it must be tended, watched, cared for, or it slips away, and even a kingdom is not guaranteed to your grandchildren. So the wise man does not presume upon what he has; he attends to it faithfully, day by day, as a trust he has been given rather than a possession he can take for granted.

And then the picture opens out into a quiet promise, painting the good, ordinary abundance that faithful care brings in its season. When the hay is cut and the new growth comes up green and the grass is gathered in from the hills, the proverb says, then the lambs will clothe you and the goats will fetch the price of a field, and there will be goat’s milk in plenty, enough to feed you and your whole household and even the servant girls who work under your roof. Do you see what a homely, sufficient picture this is? Not vast riches piled up, but a household well provided for, everyone fed, clothing on their backs, the daily needs met year after year, all of it flowing from the shepherd’s faithful attention to the flock God gave him. This is where the chapter chooses to end, and the placement is no accident. After all its warnings against boasting about tomorrow, here is how a wise person actually provides for tomorrow: not by grand schemes or anxious hoarding, but by tending well the small, living, God-given work of today, trusting the LORD to bring the increase in its season. Hold tomorrow humbly, let a true friend wound you faithfully, and tend with care the flock that God has placed in your hands.