Proverbs 13:23

Verse 20 is the saying in this passage that people know best: “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.” The verb for walking, hâlak, covers every kind of going, literal and figurative, and in Scripture it often stands for a person’s whole manner of life. To walk with someone is to share the road with them over time, so that their habits, values and ways of judging gradually become ours. The wise man, châkâm, is a person of skill and understanding, and “shall be wise” is châkam, to be wise in mind, word and act. In Proverbs that wisdom is practical skill for living righteously, and it begins with the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 9:10). Israel was a close-knit people of families and clans, and everyone understood that a person’s circle shaped his character and his name.

The second line changes the picture. The word behind “companion” is râʻâh, which first means to tend a flock or put it out to pasture, and from there comes to mean keeping company with someone as a friend. A companion has chosen his company. Strong’s traces the word for fool, kᵉçîyl, to the sense “fat”, and figuratively stupid or silly, and in Proverbs the fool is a moral figure, stubborn and closed to instruction. He despises wisdom and instruction (Proverbs 1:7) and mocks at sin (Proverbs 14:9).

“Shall be destroyed” translates rûwaʻ. The word is used most often of shouting, crying out or sounding an alarm, and Strong’s gives “to mar”, especially by breaking, as its root sense, which is how the KJV reads it here. The companion of fools ends up marred and broken alongside them, in his morals, his money, his standing among others or his walk with God, because he shared their road.

Scripture says the same in many places. The first psalm begins, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful” (Psalm 1:1). Paul warns the Corinthians that “evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33). The bright side of the same truth is in Proverbs 27:17: as iron sharpens iron, a man sharpens his friend. So this proverb speaks both to the friends we choose and to the friend we are, since we shape others as surely as they shape us.

The wisest companion of all is Christ, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3), and who “of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), and whoever abides in him bears much fruit (John 15:5). To walk with him is to grow wise. To walk away from him, or with those who lead away from him, ends in the ruin this verse describes, and it is Christ who rescues us from that ruin and gives us his Spirit to choose wisely.

Verse 19 sets a sweet thing beside a hateful one: “The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul: but it is abomination to fools to depart from evil.” The word for desire, taʼăvâh, is a longing, and by extension a delight or the thing that satisfies it. “Accomplished” is hâyâh, to be or to come to pass, so the line speaks of a longing that has come true. Such a thing is ʻârêb, agreeable and pleasant, to the soul. The soul, nephesh, is the whole living person, so the satisfaction reaches all the way in.

The second line names what fools find detestable. Tôwʻêbah, “abomination”, is something disgusting and abhorrent, and the word is also used for an idol. Across the Old Testament it names what is detestable to God, such as idolatry and injustice, and it can also describe how a thing looks to particular people: in Genesis 46:34 every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians. Here it is the fool’s own view. To depart, çûwr, is to turn off or turn aside, and to the fool (the same word, kᵉçîyl, as in verse 20) turning aside from evil is repulsive. His values are upside down, so that what is good looks loathsome to him and what is evil feels like home.

Read together, the two lines explain each other. The sweetness of the first line lies on the far side of the very turning the fool refuses. The verse just before warns that poverty and shame come to the one who refuses instruction (Proverbs 13:18). Wisdom cries out to the simple who love their simplicity and the scorners who delight in their scorning (Proverbs 1:22), and she says of those who reject her that they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 1:29–30). Paul shows where this road ends, when God gives people over to a reprobate mind (Romans 1:28–32).

Verse 21 states the moral order behind the whole passage: “Evil pursueth sinners: but to the righteous good shall be repayed.” Evil here is raʻ, the same word as in verse 19, a broad word for anything bad, natural or moral: adversity, affliction, calamity and wickedness. In this verse it means the trouble and harm that follow from sin. It pursues, râdaph, the verb for running after someone and chasing them, usually with hostile intent, so the proverb pictures trouble as an enemy on the sinner’s heels. The sinners, chaṭṭâʼ, are offenders, those counted guilty.

On the other side, good, ṭôwb, is repaid to the righteous, tsaddîyq, the just and lawful. The verb shâlam means to be safe and whole, and in other forms to make complete, to make good or to make restitution, so “repayed” carries the picture of a debt paid in full. It is related to shalom, peace and wholeness, and the good that returns to the righteous makes their life whole.

God has ordered his world so that a life sets in motion consequences that match it. Paul writes that whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7), and that God will render to every man according to his deeds (Romans 2:6–8). The first psalm closes on the same contrast: the LORD knows the way of the righteous, and the way of the ungodly shall perish (Psalm 1:6). The covenant set blessings for obedience beside curses for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28), the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and Jesus promised that those who seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness will have all these things added to them (Matthew 6:33).

Verse 22 looks down the generations: “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.” The good man is ṭôwb, the same word as the good repaid in verse 21, so the man to whom good returns is the one who passes it on. Behind “inheritance” stands nâchal, to take or give something as a permanent possession, and here to bequeath it. In Israel an inheritance was bound up with the land, the family line and the promises God had made to his people. The land was his gift, meant to be handed down, so that families kept their place and their name. “Children’s children” repeats the Hebrew word for son, bên, a son as the one who builds up the family name, and so the good man’s legacy reaches past his own children to his grandchildren. That takes foresight and faithful living over a whole lifetime.

What he leaves includes money and property, and with them a good name, wise counsel, a foundation of faith and the blessing that rests on a godly life. The psalms say the same. The righteous man is ever merciful and lends, and his seed is blessed (Psalm 37:26), and the man who fears the LORD sees his descendants mighty upon earth, with wealth and riches in his house (Psalm 112:1–3).

The second line turns to the sinner, châṭâʼ, a verb that properly means to miss, and so to sin. His wealth, chayil, is a word for force or resources of every kind: an army, wealth, strength or valour. That wealth is “laid up”, tsâphan, hidden away, hoarded, kept in reserve, and it is kept for the just. The just is tsaddîyq, the same word as “righteous” in verse 21. Job says of the wicked man, “Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the clay; He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver” (Job 27:16–17). Ecclesiastes says that God gives the sinner the labour of gathering and heaping up, so that he may give it to the one who is good before God (Ecclesiastes 2:26). Earlier in this chapter we read that wealth gained dishonestly dwindles away (Proverbs 13:11).

Verse 23 sets hard work beside wasted harvests: “Much food is in the tillage of the poor: but there is that is destroyed for want of judgment.” Tillage, nîyr, is ploughing, or the freshly ploughed and fallow ground itself. The poor, rûwsh, are the destitute and needy. In Israel nearly everyone lived from the land, and many poor people worked small inherited plots, rented fields or laboured for wealthier landowners. The first line tells us that even this ground, worked by those who have little, can yield rôb, abundance, of ʼôkel, food. Honest, diligent labour has dignity and fruit in the world God has made. Proverbs says so again and again: “He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread” (Proverbs 12:11), the hand of the diligent maketh rich (Proverbs 10:4), and the soul of the diligent shall be made fat (Proverbs 13:4).

Life on the land was precarious, and bad weather, failed crops, poor management or unrest could ruin a family quickly. “There is that is destroyed” begins with yêsh, “there is”, and the verb çâphâh means to scrape together or scrape away, so the picture is of a harvest swept off. The cause is “want of judgment”, the plain Hebrew negative lôʼ joined to mishpâṭ, judgment lacking. Mishpâṭ is first a verdict pronounced by a judge, and the word reaches to justice, right and ordinance, and also to discretion. In the KJV’s “want of judgment” it is sound judgment in running one’s affairs: the ability to weigh a situation, plan ahead and act wisely. A farmer can bring in a fine harvest and then sell it unwisely, store it badly or spend the proceeds foolishly, and lose what he worked for.

So effort needs wisdom beside it. Proverbs describes the field of the slothful and the vineyard of the man void of understanding, grown over with thorns, its stone wall broken down (Proverbs 24:30–34). In Jesus’ parable of the talents, servants who used well what their master entrusted to them are set beside one who buried it (Matthew 25:14–30). Whatever we have, little or much, calls for wise handling, and the works we commit to the LORD are established (Proverbs 16:3). The wise man who hears Christ’s sayings and does them builds his house on the rock, and it stands when the storm comes (Matthew 7:24–27).

Verse 24 is one of the best-known sayings on raising children: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” To spare, châsak, is to withhold, hold back or refrain. The rod, shêbeṭ, is a stick, rod, staff, club or sceptre, and the same word also means a tribe. A shepherd used his staff to guide and protect the flock, and a king’s sceptre stood for his rule, so the rod speaks of a parent’s authority as well as the means of correction. The son, bên, is the word behind “children” in verse 22.

To withhold correction, the proverb says, is to hate one’s son, sânêʼ, the ordinary word for personal hatred. The parent who loves, ʼâhab, who has affection for the child, chastens him. “Chasteneth” stands for mûwçâr, a word meaning chastisement, and also reproof, warning, instruction and restraint. It covers the whole work of training a child: teaching right from wrong, setting boundaries, warning and applying fitting consequences. And he does it “betimes”, shâchar, a verb meaning to dawn, and so to be up early at a task, with earnestness. Love corrects early and in earnest, before wrong habits take root.

In Israel the family was the place where faith and character were handed on. Parents were to teach God’s words diligently to their children, talking of them in the house and by the way (Deuteronomy 6:6–7). Proverbs opens by naming its purpose, “To know wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:2), and it comes back to the home often: “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Proverbs 29:15), and “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

Verse 25 closes the passage: “The righteous eateth to the satisfying of his soul: but the belly of the wicked shall want.” The righteous man, tsaddîyq, eats, ʼâkal, and is filled. Sôbaʻ, “satisfying”, is fullness and satisfaction, of food and also of joy, and it reaches his soul, nephesh, the same word as in verse 19. The passage that began with a desire sweet to the soul ends with a soul well fed. The wicked, râshâʻ, are the morally wrong, people actively bad. Their belly, beṭen, probably from a root meaning to be hollow, is the seat of appetite and stands for the inner person. That belly shall want, châçêr, lack, fail and be in need.

In a land where bread was a daily concern, a full table was a sign of God’s blessing. The proverb speaks of food, and its words reach on to the whole person, to the contentment, peace and joy that rest on God’s provision. “A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked” (Psalm 37:16). Paul learned to be content in whatever state he was, through Christ who strengthened him (Philippians 4:11–13).

These seven sayings cover friendship, money, work, family and food, the ordinary ground of daily life, and over all of it stands one God. He has made the world so that walking with the wise makes us wise, so that sin brings its own trouble and good comes back to the righteous, and so that what a godly life builds can bless grandchildren not yet born. He keeps account of the sinner’s hoard. He corrects his children as a loving father does, early and for their good. And he satisfies the soul.

All of this meets in Christ. He is the wisdom we walk with, the righteous one who took the evil that pursued us, the heir who shares his inheritance with us, the Son by whose chastisement we have peace, and the bread of life. The sweetness of verse 19 and the fullness of verse 25 are both found in him, and the way into them is the very turning from evil that fools detest, which God gives to his people as a gift.