Proverbs 19:13

“The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.” The word for discretion, sekel, comes from the root sakal, “to be wise, prudent”, and it means insight, intelligence and good sense. It is the practical understanding that lets a man stop and think before he acts, and weigh where a hasty word or deed would lead. That good sense “deferreth” his anger. The verb ʼârak means to lengthen or prolong, so the wise man’s anger is long in coming, what we would call a long fuse. The word for anger, ʼaph, literally means the nose or nostril, and it pictures the hard, quick breathing of a man in a rage.

The second line carries the first further, as Hebrew poetry often does, joining self-control and forgiveness as two sides of one wise character. To pass over is ʻâbar, to cross over or go past, and here it means to overlook. A transgression, peshaʻ, is a rebellion, an act by which someone defies an authority, and by extension the guilt that comes with it. So the verse speaks of real wrongs done against the man himself. To let them go is his glory, tiphʼârâh, a word for beauty, glory or ornament, the state of being worthy of honour. The man who holds back his anger and overlooks an offence wears his mercy like an ornament.

In Israel honour and shame weighed heavily, and the expected answer to an insult was to defend one’s honour, at times with violence or public shaming. This proverb places a man’s honour in restraint and mercy. Another proverb says the same: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Proverbs 16:32). Mastering our own temper takes more strength than winning a battle, and it builds peace where retaliation only feeds a quarrel.

This is the character of God himself. He describes himself to Moses as slow to anger (Exodus 34:6), and the psalmist praises him as merciful and gracious and slow to anger (Psalm 103:8). When we defer our anger and pass over an offence, we are like him, and our readiness to forgive grows out of the forgiveness we have received. Paul puts it this way: “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). Jesus promised, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). The discretion behind all this begins where Proverbs says all wisdom begins, in the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 9:10).

“The king’s wrath is as the roaring of a lion; but his favour is as dew upon the grass.” The word for wrath, zaʻaph, means rage or indignation, a deep and dangerous displeasure. The lion is kᵉphîyr, a young male lion. Lions were a real danger in the land, and a lion’s roar was terrible to hear and often came before an attack. A king of that day held power over the lives, property and deaths of his subjects. His decrees were law, and his anger could mean severe punishment, war or ruin for those who met it.

Favour, râtsôwn, means delight, pleasure, goodwill and acceptance. Dew, ṭal in Hebrew, was a vital source of moisture in the dry summers of the land when rain was scarce, and it kept plants alive and growing. So a king’s goodwill comes on his people as quietly as dew settles on grass, and it brings peace, prosperity and room to flourish. The quiet of the dew and the noise of the roar stand at opposite ends, and the proverb sets them side by side so that we feel how much hangs on one man’s mood.

Dew is a picture of blessing elsewhere in Scripture too. Moses’ last blessing pictures Israel dwelling safely in a land of grain and wine under heavens that drop down dew (Deuteronomy 33:28), and through Hosea the LORD promises to be as the dew to Israel as he heals and restores it (Hosea 14:5).

“Delight is not seemly for a fool; much less for a servant to have rule over princes.” Delight, taʻănûwg, comes from a root meaning to be delicate, soft or luxurious, and it means luxury and pleasure, the easy life that goes with honour and high standing. Seemly, nâʼveh, means fitting, suitable or comely. Ease and honour sit on a fool like a garment cut for someone else. Another proverb makes the same point with weather: honour suits a fool as well as snow suits summer or rain suits harvest (Proverbs 26:1).

The fool is kᵉçîyl, a word Strong’s traces to a root meaning “fat” and explains figuratively as stupid or silly. In Proverbs the fool is the man who refuses wisdom and correction. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7), and that is what the fool despises. Put such a man in comfort and he lacks the discipline and judgment to use it well. He spends it on himself, wastes what he has and comes to ruin, and others are harmed with him. His high place becomes a source of shame.

“Much less” raises the stakes. If ease is unfitting for a fool, it is far worse for a servant to rule over princes. A servant, ʻebed, from a root meaning to work or serve, is a servant, bondman or slave, someone of low standing with no authority of his own. To have rule is mâshal, simply to rule. Princes are sar, a word for anyone holding a position of authority: a chief, captain, ruler, official or prince. Israel’s society had kings, princes and nobles at the top and servants and slaves at the bottom, so a servant ruling over princes meant the whole order of things turned upside down. Ecclesiastes describes the same disorder, with folly set in high places, servants riding on horses and princes walking on the ground like servants (Ecclesiastes 10:5–7).

The proverb’s concern is fitness for authority. When people without wisdom, judgment or integrity are handed power, injustice and disorder follow, and the people under them suffer. God wants justice from those who hold office, as his instructions for Israel’s judges and officers show (Deuteronomy 16:18–20). Hannah’s song adds that it is the LORD who makes poor and makes rich, who brings low and lifts up (1 Samuel 2:7–8), so the rise and fall of every ruler is in his hands.

“A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping.” The word for foolish is the same word, kᵉçîyl, that names the fool in verse 10. Calamity, havvâh, comes from a root meaning to covet eagerly and rush upon, and by implication to fall, and it means desire, and also ruin or calamity. A son was expected to honour his father, carry on the family name and help keep the household secure. A foolish son brought his father grief, shamed the family and could ruin it, by squandering his inheritance, refusing to work or falling into crime. Proverbs says it plainly elsewhere: a foolish son is a grief to his father (Proverbs 17:21), while a wise son makes a glad father (Proverbs 10:1).

Contentions, midyân, are quarrels, disputes and bickering. The dropping is deleph, a dripping or a leak, and “continual” comes from ṭârad, to drive on or follow close. Houses were modest, and a leaking roof was a common and steady nuisance that slowly did its damage. Constant quarrelling works on a home the same way. There is no escaping it in a small house, and drop by drop it wears away peace and joy until home stops being a refuge. Proverbs returns to the picture: a continual dropping and a contentious woman are alike (Proverbs 27:15), and a corner of the rooftop is a better place to live than a house shared with a quarrelling wife (Proverbs 21:9).

“House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the LORD.” House, bayith, means a dwelling and also the household, family and line that live in it. Riches, hôwn, means wealth or substance, and by implication enough. Strong’s derives it from the same source as hûwn, in the sense of ability, power and wealth. Inheritance, nachălâh, is something inherited, an heirloom or estate passed from one generation to the next. In Israel land and property passed from father to son and gave a family its identity and security, so the first line states what everyone knew: a father can leave his children a house and money.

The second line names a gift no father can hand down. Prudent is sâkal, a verb meaning to be wise and have understanding, to consider, and also to prosper. It shares its root with the “discretion” of verse 11. A prudent wife has sound judgment and understanding, and she brings wisdom to running the household and raising the children, to the good of the whole family. Such a wife comes “from the LORD”, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of the self-existent, eternal God. Marriages were often arranged by families, and the proverb still gives God the credit for the wife who proves wise. Marriage itself was his design from the beginning (Genesis 2:24), Proverbs speaks warmly of the man who finds a good wife (Proverbs 18:22), and it praises the worth of the virtuous woman at length in Proverbs 31.

Proverbs often sets wisdom above riches (Proverbs 3:13–15), and it says that a little with the fear of the LORD is better than great treasure with trouble (Proverbs 15:16). This verse puts a wise wife in that higher place. Inherited wealth can be lost, and a wife’s wisdom blesses a home in ways money cannot. Every such gift comes down from above (James 1:17), which teaches us to look to God’s providence in marriage and to thank him for a godly spouse. The verse names a wife because it is speaking of a husband’s blessing, and Proverbs prizes wisdom in men and women alike.

“Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger.” Slothfulness, ʻatslâh, means habitual sluggishness, a settled laziness. The verse speaks of it as if it acted on its own, throwing a person into deep sleep, tardêmâh, a heavy lethargy or trance. The same word describes the sleep God caused to fall on Adam (Genesis 2:21). Here the stupor is self-made. The sluggard grows dull to his duties, blind to his opportunities and deaf to the trouble coming toward him.

The idle soul is rᵉmîyâh, a word for slackness and remissness that is also used for deceit and treachery. The idle person is negligent and unreliable, and he lets down those who depend on him as well as himself. “Soul” is nephesh, a breathing creature, life, soul, self or person, and the word can also mean appetite. So the slack soul is the whole person, and that person “shall suffer hunger”. In a farming land the link was plain to see. Fields left unplanted and crops left unharvested meant empty tables, and idleness let down a man’s family and neighbours as well as himself. The same hunger reaches the inner life, since a soul that will not stir itself goes without purpose and spiritual food.

Proverbs sends the sluggard to learn from the ant (Proverbs 6:6–11) and walks us past his overgrown field and broken wall (Proverbs 24:30–34). God gave work to man from the beginning, putting him in the garden to tend and keep it (Genesis 2:15), and Paul gave the church a plain rule about those who refuse to work (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Diligence honours God and blesses those around us.

Verse 10 warns against a servant ruling over princes, and Christ is the true Servant who rules over all in perfect wisdom. Though he was in the form of God, he made himself of no reputation and took on the form of a servant, and God has highly exalted him and given him the name above every name, so that every knee should bow at the name of Jesus (Philippians 2:6–10). In him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). He came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28), and he now reigns as KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS (Revelation 19:16). His humble service is exactly what makes his rule just.

Jesus also lived out verse 11. Under false accusation and betrayal he held back his anger and was brought as a lamb to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7). On the cross he bore the sin that put him there, for “he was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5), and he prayed, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

He is the King of verse 12. His wrath is the holy judgment of God against sin, which abides on the one who will not believe the Son (John 3:36) and which Revelation calls the wrath of the Lamb (Revelation 6:16–17). For those who come to him in faith, his favour is as dew upon the grass. His words were full of grace (Luke 4:22), and he calls the weary and heavy laden to come to him for rest (Matthew 11:28–30). Through the cross he has secured God’s favour for all who believe.

Against the foolish son of verse 13 stands Jesus, the Son of God (John 10:36), who honoured his Father perfectly, even to death, and brought salvation where the foolish son brings calamity. He is our peace (Ephesians 2:14), reconciling us to God and to one another, and by his Spirit he grows in his people the fruit of love, joy, peace and self-control that quarrelling destroys (Galatians 5:22–23).

The inheritance of verse 14 points beyond houses and riches as well. Christ is made unto us wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30), and our lasting inheritance is every spiritual blessing God gives us in him, including adoption and redemption (Ephesians 1:3–14). And the deep sleep of verse 15 has its answer in him too. We were dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), and Christ calls the sleeper to wake and rise and promises to give him light (Ephesians 5:14). He is the bread of life, and the one who comes to him will never hunger (John 6:35).

These proverbs show us God through the kind of people he makes wise. He is slow to anger and quick to forgive, and the man who passes over a transgression shares in his glory. He is the great King, whose wrath against sin is a lion’s roar and whose favour falls on his people like dew. He lifts up the lowly and brings down the proud, so every throne and office answers to him. He gives what no father can leave in a will, the wise husband or wife who makes a house a home. And he made us for good work, with hunger as the end of idleness and his own Son as the bread that satisfies. Every one of these sayings is wisdom for daily life, and every one rests on who God is.