Proverbs 17:9

“He that covereth a transgression seeketh love.” To cover, kâçâh, is properly to fill up hollows, and so to cover, as clothing covers a body or as a secret is kept. What is covered is a peshaʻ, a transgression: a rebellion, an offence or a breach of trust against someone. The one who covers it keeps the fault to himself and lets it rest, so that the other person’s honour and the friendship both survive. In doing so he “seeketh love”, and the words are bâqash, to seek, and ʼahăbâh, love, the affection and goodwill that keep friends together.

In Israel a man’s standing, honour and wellbeing were bound up with his family, his clan and his community, and public shame could ruin him. To cover a friend’s fault protected his dignity and the bond between them, and it was counted an act of loyalty and mercy. Proverbs praises the same discretion elsewhere, setting the talebearer who reveals secrets against the man of faithful spirit who conceals the matter (Proverbs 11:13).

The second half of the verse follows the opposite road. To repeat, shânâh, is to fold over or double, to do a thing a second time. The thing repeated is a dâbâr, a word that means a word or speech and also a matter, affair or thing. So the man who “repeateth a matter” keeps bringing an offence up again. He tells it to others, reminds the offender of it, or nurses the grievance until it colours every meeting. That man “separateth very friends”. The verb pârad means to divide or separate, and “friends” translates ʼallûwph, a close friend, companion or partner, a word that can also mean a chief. A whisperer does the same damage in Proverbs 16:28, where he “separateth chief friends”. The closest bond can break over an old fault told one time too many, for “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21).

Peter gives the church the same teaching: “charity shall cover the multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). Paul tells believers to forbear one another and forgive one another as Christ forgave them (Colossians 3:13), and to be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us (Ephesians 4:32).

The love that covers is first of all God’s own. Christ “was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5), and God has removed them from us “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). In the new covenant he promises, “I will remember their sin no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). Because the debt is paid, God lets the matter rest. Jesus came so that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17), and when the woman taken in adultery was set before him, he sent her accusers away, spared her public shame and called her to sin no more (John 8:1–11).

“The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water.” The beginning, rêʼshîyth, is the first of anything in time, place, order or rank, and here it is the first moment of a quarrel. Strife, mâdôwn, comes from a root meaning to judge or contend, and it means a quarrel, brawling or discord. To let out water is pâṭar with mayim. The verb means to separate, set free or let out, and mayim is water. The picture is a small gap in a dam or an irrigation channel. A trickle widens into a torrent, and once the water is out, it is beyond calling back.

Israel lived close to its water. In a land of droughts and sudden floods, wells, channels and dams kept crops and families alive, and a breach could quickly ruin fields, homes and livelihoods. Village life depended on peace between neighbours in the same way, and a dispute could tear apart family honour and the work people did together.

So the proverb concludes, “therefore leave off contention, before it be meddled with”. To leave off, nâṭash, is to let go of or abandon something. Contention, rîyb, is a contest or dispute, a word also used of a case at law. “Before” is pânîym, the word for face, plural in form and used as a singular, here meaning ahead of. “Meddled with” translates gâlaʻ, to break out or burst out, as a quarrel does, which Strong’s renders “be obstinate, meddle”. The counsel is to drop the dispute while it is still small, before it bursts into the open, before both sides harden and others are drawn in. The longer it runs, the harder and costlier it is to stop.

Wisdom in Proverbs is foresight. It is “the principal thing” (Proverbs 4:7), and here it shows itself in seeing where a quarrel is going and stepping out at its first sharp word. “It is an honour for a man to cease from strife: but every fool will be meddling” (Proverbs 20:3). “A soft answer turneth away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1), and “he that is slow to wrath is of great understanding” (Proverbs 14:29), while a contentious man kindles strife as coals feed a fire (Proverbs 26:21). Paul gives the same counsel: “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18).

“A reproof entereth more into a wise man than an hundred stripes into a fool.” A reproof, gᵉʻârâh, is a rebuke, from a root meaning to chide: a firm, plain word of correction with authority behind it. It “entereth” (nâchath, to go down, sink or settle) into the one who hears it. The “wise man” here is the man who understands, for the word is bîyn, to understand or discern. He can tell right from wrong and see what a rebuke means for him, so one word, said once, goes down into him, settles in his conscience and changes him.

The fool is a kᵉçîyl, a word Strong’s explains figuratively as stupid or silly, from a root meaning to be fat. He takes “an hundred stripes”, a hundred (mêʼâh) blows from the verb nâkâh, to strike, and they leave him as he was. The Law set forty stripes as the most a guilty man could be given (Deuteronomy 25:3), so a hundred lies far beyond any real sentence, an overstatement that makes the point unforgettable. Even that much pain stays on the fool’s skin, while a single word reaches the heart of the wise. Another proverb says that a fool brayed in a mortar among wheat with a pestle will still have his foolishness (Proverbs 27:22).

The difference lies in the one who receives correction. A heart willing to learn is changed by a word that an obstinate heart would shrug off under the lash. So the wise welcome rebuke: “Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee” (Proverbs 9:8). They “take fast hold of instruction” (Proverbs 4:13) and become doers of the word as well as hearers (James 1:22). God’s own correction comes to his children in this way, for “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” (Hebrews 12:5–6). His word, through Scripture and through the counsel of his people, reaches the receptive heart and leads it to repentance and maturity, while a heart that hardens itself against him stays as it was through every consequence.

Several Hebrew words name the fool in this part of Proverbs. In verse 7 he is a nâbâl, which Strong’s defines as stupid and wicked, especially impious. In verses 10 and 12 he is a kᵉçîyl, the stupid or silly man. Elsewhere Proverbs calls him an ʼĕwîl, and his folly in verse 12 is ʼivveleth. Against him stand the wise man, the chakham, and the man of understanding of verse 10.

What marks the fool in every case is where his heart stands toward God and his wisdom. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7). Fools hate knowledge (Proverbs 1:22), despise a father’s instruction (Proverbs 15:5), trust in their own hearts (Proverbs 28:26), and “as a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly” (Proverbs 26:11). An ignorant man can be taught, while the fool has set himself against learning, and that is why rebuke slides off him and why he is dangerous to meet. The wise man fears the LORD, loves instruction and accepts correction. His path is “as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day”, while the way of the wicked is as darkness (Proverbs 4:18–19). That wisdom is found by those who seek it as silver and search for it as for hid treasures (Proverbs 2:1–5).

“Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.” The bear, dôb, was the Syrian brown bear, native to the land and a real danger to shepherds and travellers in the wild places. “Robbed of her whelps” is shakkûwl, bereaved, the word for a mother, animal or human, who has lost her young. A mother bear whose cubs had been taken was the picture of fury in its most deadly form, and everyone who heard the proverb knew to fear her. The Hebrew joins the two meetings with the particle ʼal, which makes the second a strong refusal: let the bear meet a man, and by no means a fool in his folly.

A bear’s rage has a cause and an end. She attacks because her cubs are gone, and when the encounter is over, it is over. A fool in his folly is moved by unreason, so his next step is impossible to foresee, and the harm he does runs on for years. He damages friendships, reputations and the life of a community, his own soul included, and he refuses to learn from any of it. The bear threatens the body for a moment. The fool’s folly is a moral and spiritual force that does its damage over time.

So the proverb counsels caution. Arguing with a fool deep in his folly usually achieves little and can draw the one who argues into harm. Wisdom sets boundaries, limits time spent in his company, keeps out of his foolishness and, where the pattern goes on, may step away altogether. Proverbs gives both sides of the matter together: at times we leave a fool unanswered so as to stay unlike him, and at times we answer him so that he is kept from being wise in his own conceit (Proverbs 26:4–5). The same verse is a mirror, for the folly it describes can take root in any heart that stops listening to God.

“Excellent speech becometh not a fool: much less do lying lips a prince.” “Excellent” is yether, properly an overhanging, and so an excess or what is superior. Joined to sâphâh, lip, it means lofty, eloquent, impressive speech. Such speech is out of keeping with a nâbâl. When fine words come from a man whose heart is set against wisdom, they ring false, because the outward form and the inner man are at odds. A proverb in a fool’s mouth is like the legs of the lame (Proverbs 26:7), while “the lips of the righteous know what is acceptable” (Proverbs 10:32). The proverb is about fit, and it calls for words that truly reflect the person who speaks them.

“Much less” argues from the lesser case to the greater. If fine words are out of place in a fool, lies are far more out of place in a prince. The prince, nâdîyb, is properly the willing or generous man, and so the noble, a grandee, a man of rank and influence. His very title speaks of an honourable character, and lies in his mouth contradict the name. In Israel kings, judges and elders spoke words that carried the weight of law, so a deceitful ruler damaged the people’s trust, the stability of the community and its standing before God. “If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked” (Proverbs 29:12).

Behind this proverb lies a truth found all through Proverbs: words come from the heart, which is why we keep the heart “with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). “Lying lips are abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 12:22). The one who may dwell on God’s holy hill “speaketh the truth in his heart” (Psalm 15:1–2), and Paul tells the church to put away lying and speak truth each with his neighbour (Ephesians 4:25). God, who weighs the spirit behind the words, holds those who lead others to the strictest standard of truth, because he himself is true.

Proverbs 17:8 describes how a bribe works in a fallen world, and the rest of Scripture passes judgment on it. The gift is shachad, which Strong’s defines as a donation, “venal or redemptive”: a bribe, gift, present or reward. It can mean an honest present, but in matters of judgment and government the Old Testament mostly uses it for a payment made to sway a decision. The word behind “precious” is chên, graciousness, favour or charm, so this is a stone of favour, a gem that charms. In the eyes of “him that hath it”, its baʻal or owner, the bribe looks like such a jewel. “Whithersoever it turneth” uses pânâh, to turn or to face, so wherever it is turned. “It prospereth” is sâkal, a verb that can mean to be wise, to understand, to consider and to prosper, and here it means to succeed. Wherever the bribe goes, it gets its way.

Proverbs often sets down the way things are and lets its wider teaching judge them. In Solomon’s world gifts bought favour with judges, officials and kings, and justice could be bought, so the poor, who had nothing to give, were the ones who lost. The Law speaks plainly: “thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous” (Exodus 23:8), and it repeats the warning to Israel’s judges (Deuteronomy 16:19). Isaiah condemns rulers who love gifts and follow after rewards (Isaiah 1:23). Proverbs itself says that “he that hateth gifts shall live” (Proverbs 15:27), and it calls a false balance an abomination to the LORD (Proverbs 11:1). God himself “regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward” (Deuteronomy 10:17). His judgments are true and impartial, and his favour is beyond any price.

Honest gifts belong to another category. “A man’s gift maketh room for him” (Proverbs 18:16), and Scripture welcomes what is given from love, generosity or thanks. The difference lies in the intent, since the bribe is paid to corrupt a judgment or win an unfair advantage. For God’s people this means refusing to give or take a gift that would bend a conscience or pervert what is right, even when it would work, and being salt and light in the world (Matthew 5:13–16).

“An evil man seeketh only rebellion: therefore a cruel messenger shall be sent against him.” The KJV supplies the word “man”. Evil, raʻ, covers both wickedness and calamity, and here it describes a man whose whole bent is toward what is bad. What he seeks is mᵉrîy, rebellion, from a root meaning to be bitter or rebellious: obstinate, stubborn defiance of authority, of instruction and finally of God. He “seeketh” it (bâqash, to search out, seek or require), and he seeks it “only”. This is the settled direction of a life, a man whose purpose runs toward resisting what is right.

“Therefore” ties the judgment to the rebellion. The “cruel messenger” is a malʼâk, one sent, a deputy, who is ʼakzârîy, cruel or terrible. The word malʼâk can mean a human envoy, an ambassador, a prophet or an angel. Kings sent officers to enforce their decrees and carry out punishments, and the hearers would picture such an officer coming for the rebel without pity. He “shall be sent” (shâlach, to send), so the judgment is dispatched on purpose. It may come through human authorities, through the harvest of the rebel’s own choices or by God’s direct hand, and in every case God is the one who sends it.

Those who reject wisdom “eat of the fruit of their own way” (Proverbs 1:31). “Pride goeth before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18), “the way of transgressors is hard” (Proverbs 13:15), and “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). Paul warns of the hard heart that treasures up wrath for the day when God “will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:5–6). The Law set blessing and curse before Israel on the same terms (Deuteronomy 28).

“Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.” To reward, shûwb, is to turn back or return, and here it means to pay back. This man meets kindness with harm. In Israel kindness, hospitality, mutual help and loyalty held families and communities together, so returning evil for good betrayed trust, broke the bonds of the people and offended God. The word raʻ, evil, comes twice in the verse, and the evil he pays out becomes the evil that stays with him.

That evil will stay (mûwsh, to depart, is the verb the proverb denies) in his bayith, his house. The house meant the household and family, those who came after, and their name and standing in the community. So the trouble he sows settles on everything that bears his name, as discord at home, an absence of peace and a distress that clings to him and his.

Scripture forbids even returning evil for evil. “Recompense to no man evil for evil” (Romans 12:17), Peter teaches the same (1 Peter 3:9), and Proverbs says, “Say not thou, I will recompense evil; but wait on the LORD” (Proverbs 20:22). Paying evil for good is darker still. The way of God’s people is to “overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21).

Each of these sayings finds its fullness in Jesus. He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), and his speech matched who he is perfectly. “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63), and he taught “as one having authority” (Matthew 7:29). He is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), the faithful and true witness (Revelation 3:14) and the truth itself (John 14:6). Of him Peter says that he “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22), so in him the prince’s lips are wholly true.

Against the bribe that buys its way, God gave his Son out of love (John 3:16), and salvation “is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8–9), freely given and received by faith. Christ is the “chief corner stone, elect, precious” (1 Peter 2:6–7), the true precious stone, and through him all who believe receive favour that no one can buy.

Christ is “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24), “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). His words went deep into his disciples, who heard them and built on the rock (Matthew 7:24), while others heard and built on sand (Matthew 7:26–27), and many saw his miracles and still believed him not (John 12:37–40). The preaching of the cross is foolishness to them that perish and the power of God to us who are saved (1 Corinthians 1:18). The fool of verse 10 is unmoved by a hundred stripes, and of Christ’s stripes Isaiah says, “with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). He suffered to redeem those whose hearts grace would make willing.

The rebellion of verse 11 is the root of our whole trouble, and Christ answered it with obedience “unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). The judgment that rebellion deserves fell on him, for God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). For all who turn and trust him, that judgment is spent, and for those who persist in unbelief, condemnation remains (John 3:18–19). Verse 13 reverses in him as well. We repaid God’s goodness with evil, and the Lamb of God, “which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), repaid our evil with salvation.

He also kept the peace of verse 14 at the greatest cost. Provoked and falsely accused, he was silent “as a sheep before her shearers” (Isaiah 53:7). He called the peacemakers blessed (Matthew 5:9) and made peace “through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20), and his people are to follow peace with all men (Hebrews 12:14) and to be likeminded one toward another (Romans 15:5).

These proverbs show us a God who cares about the small places where character is formed: a sentence said in passing, a gift slipped across a table, an old grievance raised again, the first sharp word of a quarrel. He weighs the spirit behind every word. He is beyond any bribe, he sends judgment on settled rebellion, and he waits to be gracious. In his Son he covers the transgressions of all who come to him, and he lets the matter rest.

What these verses praise is his own way reflected in a human life: truthful lips, an ear open to correction, love that covers, gratitude that repays good with good, and peace kept early. The fool of these verses is a warning about a heart closed to God, and the wise man shows what God’s grace makes of a heart that listens. A rebuke that goes deep, a fault that is covered and a quarrel left before it breaks out are each small mercies, given by the God who has covered our own transgressions in Christ.