Proverbs 21:15

Verses 9 and 19 make a matching pair. “It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house,” and “It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.” Both open with ṭôwb, the broad Hebrew word for good, used here to compare: one hard place is better than one comfortable one. Both use yâshab for “dwell”, a verb meaning to sit down, stay or live somewhere, so the picture is of a settled life. And both name the same trouble in the woman, ʼishshâh, who shares the house. The word behind “brawling” in verse 9 and “contentious” in verse 19 is mâdôwn, with its related form midyân, meaning a contest or quarrel, contention and strife. It describes quarrelling as a settled habit, the steady atmosphere of a home.

“The soul of the wicked desireth evil: his neighbour findeth no favour in his eyes.” The soul, nephesh, is the breathing self: life, person, appetite, the inner being where desire lives. “Desireth” is ʼâvâh, to wish for, crave or covet, a strong and active longing. So verse 10 traces wickedness back past the deed to what a man wants at his core. The word for evil, raʻ, is very broad. It covers moral wrong, mischief, calamity and distress, so this craving can show itself in anything from small, steady unkindness to open malice, including delight in other people’s misfortune.

The second line shows where that craving goes. His neighbour, rêaʻ, is the man near him, a word Strong’s traces to a root meaning to associate with as a friend, and in Israel it reached friends, associates, fellow Israelites and strangers living among them. The favour he withholds is chânan, to bend or stoop in kindness, to be gracious, to pity. “In his eyes”, with ʻayin, the eye, places the fault in how he looks at people. He sees his neighbour and finds every reason to keep his kindness to himself. The Law had commanded the opposite, to love your neighbour as yourself (Leviticus 19:18).

Scripture says the same about the heart again and again. Proverbs calls the heart the source from which the issues of life flow (Proverbs 4:23), and it calls the way of the wicked an abomination to the LORD (Proverbs 15:9). Before the flood every imagination of man’s heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5). Jeremiah calls the heart deceitful (Jeremiah 17:9), Jesus says that evil thoughts and every other sin come out of the heart (Matthew 15:19), and John says that whoever hates his brother is a murderer (1 John 3:15).

Jesus is the opposite of this soul. He said that his food was to do the will of the Father (John 4:34), and he told us to be kind to the unthankful and the evil, merciful as our Father is merciful (Luke 6:35–36). Through him God writes his law in our hearts (Hebrews 8:10) and sheds his love abroad in them by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), turning the desires of the soul toward good and toward kindness for our neighbours.

“When the scorner is punished, the simple is made wise: and when the wise is instructed, he receiveth knowledge.” Verse 11 names three kinds of people. The scorner, lûwts, is the scoffer who derides wisdom and mocks correction. The simple, pᵉthîy, is the naive person Strong’s calls “seducible”, easily led for lack of discernment and still open to learning. The wise, châkâm, already has discernment, rooted in the fear of the LORD, which is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs 1:7).

The simple and the wise learn in different ways. The simple learns by watching. When the scorner’s mockery brings punishment on him, the simple sees where that road leads and becomes wise while being spared its pain. Proverbs warns that those who refuse wisdom’s call will reap the outcome of their own way (Proverbs 1:24–32), and this verse shows the lesson others draw from it. The wise learns by being taught. For him a word of instruction is enough, and he receives knowledge, daʻath, which takes in skill and discernment as well as facts. “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser” (Proverbs 9:9). True wisdom keeps learning, and its humility is the opposite of the scorner’s pride.

People ask whether a scorner can ever become wise. Anyone who humbles himself and becomes teachable can begin the way of wisdom, which starts with the fear of the LORD, and that change is the work of God’s grace and of his word. The scorner’s rebellion leads to death, for the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Christ is made unto us wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:30), and he teaches the simple: whoever hears his sayings and does them builds his house on the rock (Matthew 7:24–27). His Spirit goes on guiding his disciples into all truth (John 16:13), so the wise keep receiving knowledge.

“The righteous man wisely considereth the house of the wicked: but God overthroweth the wicked for their wickedness.” The KJV supplies “man”, “God” and “their” to make the sense plain in English. The righteous, tsaddîyq, is the just man whose life fits God’s standard. “Wisely considereth” is sâkal, which means to be wise, to have understanding, to consider and to prosper, and here it is careful, discerning attention. What he considers is the house, bayith, of the wicked, a word that in Israel took in a man’s family, line, wealth, reputation and all he built. The righteous man looks past its present success to its instability, envies none of it, and learns from it what to avoid.

The second line gives the reason. The verb çâlaph means to wrench, overturn or subvert, and the one who overturns is God. He overthrows the wicked “for their wickedness”, and the word for wickedness is raʻ, the same word as the “evil” the wicked soul craves in verse 10. The evil a man wants becomes the cause of his fall. Proverbs says elsewhere that the house of the wicked shall be overthrown (Proverbs 14:11) and that righteousness exalteth a nation (Proverbs 14:34). The LORD executes righteousness and judgment for the oppressed (Psalm 103:6). Asaph was troubled by the prosperity of the wicked until he went into the sanctuary of God and understood their end (Psalm 73:17–19), and a psalm of David says that the wicked shall be turned into hell (Psalm 9:17).

“Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.” “Whoso” opens the warning to anyone at all, whatever his station. To stop the ears, ʼâṭam, is to shut or close them, a verb also used for closing the lips and narrowing a window. Here it is a chosen act: the man hears the sound and blocks it out. What he blocks is the cry, zaʻaq, a shriek or outcry, the loud and urgent appeal of someone in real distress. The poor, dal, are the weak, thin and low, and Strong’s explains the word as properly “dangling”. In Israel the poor were often people who had lost their land, family support or health and depended on the justice and generosity of others.

The second line turns the act back on him. A day comes when he cries too, and his cry goes unheard. The penalty matches the sin closely, since the man who refused to listen finds that others refuse him. Paul writes that whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7–8), and James that judgment will be merciless to the one who showed no mercy (James 2:13).

The whole of Scripture stands behind this verse. The Law told Israel to open the hand wide to a poor brother and lend him what he needed (Deuteronomy 15:7–11). Amos condemned Israel for its injustice against the poor (Amos 2:6–7). Proverbs condemns those who oppress the poor (Proverbs 14:31) and promises that whoever gives to the poor will lack nothing (Proverbs 28:27). James asks what good it is to wish a cold and hungry brother well and send him away empty (James 2:15–16), Jesus says that what was refused to the least of his brethren was refused to him (Matthew 25:41–45), and John asks how the love of God can dwell in someone who sees his brother in need and closes his heart (1 John 3:17–18).

The cry of the poor also rises from oppressive practices and from the neglect of a whole society. Hearing it can therefore mean speaking up against injustice as well as giving help, as Isaiah calls God’s people to seek judgment and relieve the oppressed (Isaiah 1:17).

Verse 14 describes a gift that makes peace with an angry man, and Scripture keeps that apart from a bribe that perverts justice. “A gift in secret pacifieth anger: and a reward in the bosom strong wrath.” The gift, mattân, comes from nātan, to give, and means a present. It is given in secret, çêther, a covering or hiding place, so it is quiet and private. “Pacifieth” is kâphâh, to bend, and so to tame or subdue: the anger is brought under control. The second line says the same thing more strongly. “A reward” is shachad, another word for a gift, which can also mean a bribe. “In the bosom”, chêyq, is something held close and given privately. “Strong wrath” joins ʻaz, strong, to chêmâh, heat or rage, the hot fury that even such a gift can quiet.

The Law forbade taking a gift to blind the eyes of a judge (Exodus 23:8, Deuteronomy 16:19), and that kind of bribe is condemned throughout Scripture. The gift in this verse belongs with Jacob’s present to Esau, sent ahead with the words that he would appease his brother with it (Genesis 32:20). It restores peace and wrongs nobody. Proverbs also records life as it is, and this verse is first an observation that a quiet gift works on angry people. The intent and the setting decide whether a particular gift is a kindness or a corruption.

The secrecy matters. In Israel gifts served many honourable ends: tribute to a king, a sign of respect, an approach between enemies. A gift handed over in public in the middle of a quarrel can look like a bribe or a humiliation and inflame the anger it was meant to calm. Given privately, it lets the angry man accept it and keep his dignity. The same wisdom shows in the soft answer that “turneth away wrath” (Proverbs 15:1), in leaving off strife before it breaks out (Proverbs 17:14), and in the promise that when a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him (Proverbs 16:7). In our own lives it can take the form of a private apology, a quiet act of service or a concession made without fanfare.

“It is joy to the just to do judgment: but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity.” Joy, simchâh, is gladness or mirth, the joy people feel and show at feasts and festivals. The just, tsaddîyq, find that joy in doing judgment, mishpâṭ, a word that covers a verdict, a sentence, a decree and the law itself, and more widely justice and right conduct. To do judgment is to do what is right and fair in every part of life, and for the just it is a delight. Their nature is in step with God’s, so right action pleases them.

The other line turns to the workers, pâʻal, those who make a practice of iniquity, ʼâven, a word for wickedness that also carries the sense of emptiness and worthlessness. Destruction waits for them, mᵉchittâh, a breaking down and ruin, and also dismay and terror. That ruin is God’s judgment, and it is also the natural end of their own empty way. Sometimes it comes as a sudden collapse, and sometimes as a slow wearing away of character and relationships, the way laughter ends in heaviness (Proverbs 14:13). This is the choice of Psalm 1:1–6 in a single line: the righteous flourish and the way of the ungodly perishes. The way of the LORD is strength to the upright (Proverbs 10:29), and what he requires is to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). In practice that means honesty and fairness in our dealings, pleading the cause of the weak, and choosing what is right when it costs us.

Jesus found his joy in doing the Father’s will. He preached the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 4:17) and endured the cross for the joy that was set before him (Hebrews 12:2). The destruction due to the workers of iniquity he bore himself, made sin for us though he knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), so that we are justified by faith and have peace with God (Romans 5:1–2).

“The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.” The man, ʼâdâm, wanders, tâʻâh, a verb for straying, reeling or going astray, whether through error, deception or choice. He leaves the way, derek, Scripture’s picture for the whole course and conduct of a life. And it is the way of understanding, sâkal, the same verb as “wisely considereth” in verse 12: the practical, discerning wisdom that guides a life well.

His end is told as a kind of rest. “Shall remain” is nûwach, to rest, settle down or abide. The wanderer at last stops moving, and the place where he settles is the congregation, qâhâl, an assembly or company called together, from qâhal, to assemble. It is the company of the dead, râphâʼ, a word used in the plural, râphâʼim (also written repha’im), for the shades of the departed in Sheol, pictured as weak and powerless. Together, qahal repha’im is a gathering of shades.

The proverb names where his road ends, among the dead. It also describes a life that is lifeless in God’s sight already, cut off from the vitality and purpose that come from him, while the man still walks about. Proverbs warns of a way that looks right to a man and ends in death (Proverbs 14:12). Wisdom says that whoever finds her finds life, and all who hate her love death (Proverbs 8:35–36). The path of the just shines brighter and brighter while the way of the wicked is darkness (Proverbs 4:18–19). Moses set life and death before Israel and called them to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19–20).

The trouble that threatens the righteous falls on the wicked, and in God’s justice the wicked become the price of the righteous man’s deliverance. “The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor for the upright.” The ransom, kôpher, is most often the price paid for a life, and the same word can mean a bribe. The wicked, râshâʻ, is the morally wrong, actively bad man, guilty before God. The transgressor comes from bâgad, to act deceitfully or treacherously. The upright, yâshâr, is the straight, just man, and the word stands beside tsaddîyq, righteous, in the first line.

The picture is one of exchange within God’s justice: what was coming on the upright falls on the treacherous in their place. Often their own schemes recoil on them, as when a man digs a pit and falls into it himself (Psalm 7:15–16). Proverbs says elsewhere that the righteous is delivered out of trouble and the wicked comes in his stead (Proverbs 11:8), and through Isaiah God told Israel that he had given nations as their ransom (Isaiah 43:3–4). Many are the afflictions of the righteous, and the LORD delivers him out of them all (Psalm 34:19), for God judges the world in righteousness (Psalm 9:8). Like verse 12, this states the sure direction of God’s justice, which he works out in his own time.

These proverbs show us a God who looks past houses and wealth to the heart. He weighs whether a home has peace, whether a soul craves evil or delights in justice, and whether ears are open to the poor. He teaches the simple by the fall of the scorner and the wise by his word. He overthrows the wicked and delivers the upright, and he sets the end of every road, life for the way of understanding and the company of the dead for those who leave it.

They also show us Christ, who is the peace of our homes, the wisdom of God, the way of life, the one who heard the cry of the poor, and the righteous ransom given for the unrighteous. In him the joy of verse 15 becomes ours, the joy of doing right before a God who is just. A quiet corner with peace, an ear open to the needy, a teachable heart and gladness in what is right are the riches this passage holds out, and they belong to everyone who walks with him.