13 A wise son hears his father’s instruction,
but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.
2 From the fruit of his mouth a man eats what is good,
but the desire of the treacherous is for violence.
3 Whoever guards his mouth preserves his life;
he who opens wide his lips comes to ruin.
4 The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing,
while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.
5 The righteous hates falsehood,
but the wicked brings shame1 and disgrace.
6 Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless,
but sin overthrows the wicked.
7 One pretends to be rich,2 yet has nothing;
another pretends to be poor,3 yet has great wealth.
8 The ransom of a man’s life is his wealth,
but a poor man hears no threat.
9 The light of the righteous rejoices,
but the lamp of the wicked will be put out.
10 By insolence comes nothing but strife,
but with those who take advice is wisdom.
11 Wealth gained hastily4 will dwindle,
but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.
12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
13 Whoever despises the word5 brings destruction on himself,
but he who reveres the commandment6 will be rewarded.
14 The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life,
that one may turn away from the snares of death.
15 Good sense wins favor,
but the way of the treacherous is their ruin.7
16 Every prudent man acts with knowledge,
but a fool flaunts his folly.
17 A wicked messenger falls into trouble,
but a faithful envoy brings healing.
18 Poverty and disgrace come to him who ignores instruction,
but whoever heeds reproof is honored.
19 A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul,
but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools.
20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise,
but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
21 Disaster8 pursues sinners,
but the righteous are rewarded with good.
22 A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children,
but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.
23 The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food,
but it is swept away through injustice.
24 Whoever spares the rod hates his son,
but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.9
25 The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite,
but the belly of the wicked suffers want.
Section Overview
Proverbs 13 begins a turn to three chapters that contrast wise and foolish and wisdom and folly (chs. 13–15). The contrast between righteousness and wickedness in earlier chapters will remain in the background throughout these chapters.114 While they are distinct in their own ways, wisdom (prudent reasoning) and righteousness (ethics) overlap in many obvious ways (cf. Response section to Overview of Proverbs 10–29).
Chapter 12 held our attention with sayings mostly about work and righteous speech. Chapter 13 turns to develop several oft-repeated themes: teachableness, wealth, humility, and the complex nature of our emotional and intentional makeup (including desire, hope, and satisfaction). Several contemplative or reflective sayings have been mixed into this group as well. These include observations about pride and modesty (v. 7), desire and hope (vv. 12, 19), and the mysteries of injustice and suffering (v. 23). These contemplative and more difficult sayings increase after chapter 15.
Section Outline
II.A. Solomon’s Intro to Wisdom: Contrasts of the Wise-Righteous and Wicked-Fools (10:1–15:33) . . .
2. Wise or Foolish (13:1–15:33)
a. Humility, Speech, and Desire (13:1–4)
b. Consequences for the Righteous and the Wicked (13:5–6)
c. Types of Wealth, Arrogance and Humility, and Patience and Haste (13:7–11)
d. Observations on Hope and Desire and Wisdom and Learning (13:12–19)
e. Concluding Thoughts on Work, Wisdom, and Success in Life (13:20–25)
Response
The Transformation of Desires
Chapter 13 has a keen interest in human desire and the bodily life. In this way it is true to the pattern throughout the rest of the book, which affirms the human body as both good and essential to man’s identity. One could say that in Proverbs a person does not have a body with desires; he is a body of desires that act upon the world. This is true of Scripture as a whole but is especially salient in the Wisdom Literature. We should not be ashamed of this truth or dream of escaping the physical life one day. To “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8) is a gift to be experienced in our God-given flesh. At the same time, this good bodily life is also our greatest vulnerability, for, in our fallen state, the power of desire and the weakness of human virtue threaten to undo us at every turn. And they usually do. What does this chapter have to say to this reality?
Proverbs does not give an explicit statement of the doctrine of sin; there is no Pauline formulation that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). In other words, while Proverbs recognizes that sin is everywhere in the world, the book is intent on shaping the moral life and maintains a pervasive optimism about attaining wisdom and righteousness. Teachers and preachers should not hide from the fact that Proverbs does not focus only on sin. The OT is not a dour, hopeless collection of Israel’s sins waiting for Jesus to come along. It is often preached that way, but the OT is far more complex than that, and books like Proverbs often suffer mistreatment from a such a poor reading.
The tone of Proverbs affirms our humanity and, in doing so, gives us a sense of why God considers it worthwhile to save us. He desires us to experience life as he designed it from the beginning, and that means transformation—moral, physical, psychological, and social. To speak again of Paul, Proverbs is a little like Romans 7; 12–14 in the way it helps us wrestle with life in this world prior to our full redemption. There is a battle ongoing, and Scripture offers wisdom to help us to “abhor what is evil” and “hold fast to what is good” (Rom. 12:9). The battle culminates in a renewal of creation and all bodily life (Rom. 8:9–25; 13:9–14).
In terms of specific yearnings, Proverbs speaks of the desires for food (Prov. 13:2, 4, 23, 25) and wealth (vv. 7, 11, 22), as well as of hopes and dreams (v. 12). All of these are an unavoidable part of life, though the desire for wealth, while not condemned, is the one of which Proverbs is the most wary. Balancing the positive statements about wealth, verse 8 warns, “The ransom of a man’s life is his wealth, but a poor man hears no threat.” To have the “fear of the Lord” and “love” is better than living with wealth or great feasts (15:16–17; cf. 17:1). The poor avert the gaze of financial sharks (13:8), but they also tend to lack friends (14:20). Moreover, Proverbs fits well with a progressive view of spirituality. It recognizes the good in things but trains us in both partaking and self-denial (cf. 23:1–8).
Hope and Satisfaction
Like the pursuit of wealth, our hopes—visions, dreams, and longings—involve a tremendously complex mixture of thought and emotion. Unrealized hopes (13:12) are a real part of life. It is highly significant that Israel’s patriarchal narratives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph all hinge on hopes for offspring, land, and redemption that is delayed—sometimes for decades on end.
Eventually almost all these hopes are fulfilled in Genesis (cf. v. 19). This highlights the contrast between disappointment that “makes the heart sick” (v. 12) and satisfaction that is “sweet to the soul” (v. 19), and the effects these have on people and families. Modern bio-chemistry shows that these moods or states we find in the narratives arise as the body releases chemicals such as oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and the like.
What, then, will bring peace and still these endlessly craving jars of clay in which we exist? Ecclesiastes, the most pessimistic book of the Bible when it comes to this question, nevertheless continually recommends that we learn to find joy and pleasure in family, food, and work. As a conclusion to the chapter, Proverbs 13:25 is more than likely a picture for the whole of life, not just hunger for food. The habits of a “righteous” person lead to greater peace and joy than those of the “wicked.”
The habits described in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are very close to what contemporary counseling calls coping mechanisms, such as gratitude for little things, valuing friends and family, and self-denial. The point here is not to reduce life to chemical reactions or tricks to being happy. Indeed, the Christian moral tradition upholds the truth that resilience and strength arise from habits of virtues such as courage, temperance, and patience. The point here is that science confirms for us that something close to deep human satisfaction and contentment arises alongside disciplines of guarding our desires, being a part of families and communities, and finding meaning in daily meals and physical tasks.
The Community
This leads us to reflect on the role of the community in this chapter—a role we find throughout Proverbs and the rest of Scripture. The sociologist Felicia Wu Song’s timely book, Virtual Communities: Bowling Alone, Online Together, is pertinent here.116 Her title plays upon studies published under the title Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, esteemed professor of public policy at Harvard University.117 Putman’s research had established a clear withdrawal from community participation going back to the end of World War II and the introduction of the television into American homes.
Song advances Putman’s work, tracing this drift in American society away from community centers and collective activities toward people spending more and more time alone—at work and at home. Song’s writing is a wake-up call to our digital-native culture, because the internet provides a way for us to be “together” but still somehow increasingly alone at the same time. Technological connection cannot make up for the loss of personal contact.
Song’s perspective is backed up by Jean Twenge’s piece in the Atlantic provocatively titled “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”118 Twenge reinforces the mounting evidence that our smartphones and other devices are tied increasingly to time alone and loneliness, alongside patterns of decreased sleep and less interest in dating or sex. While the last trend might sound good to parents, it is part of a larger development in which virtual communities lead people to tune out of physical, public life. Add to that a rapidly growing trend of students’ requesting single rooms across our colleges and universities and we find ourselves living on islands connected by mere digital bits and bytes.
Among the destructive trends we are seeing today, two are prominent in Proverbs 13. The first arises from what has been called the loss of “friction” in our communities—that tangible set of feelings we have in face-to-face interactions, things like eye contact, tone of voice, and body language—that temper how we speak and how others hear us. We are all now discovering that social media and email make it easy to send “zingers”—harsh, blunt, rash statements we would never say in person. It is also easier to move on from difficult relationships to new, less challenging engagements. Face-to-face contact has a buffering effect that leads to greater accountability and responsibility.
In Proverbs 13 the social space of the community forces people to deal with the “shame and disgrace” of the “wicked” (v. 5), the reputations belonging to wealth and humility (v. 7), public “favor” (v. 15), and general “disgrace” (v. 18). Today, however, we live with less accountability for our actions and less of a sense of our impact on others and, reciprocally, our need of them.
The community is also at the heart of the path to becoming wise—in both its authority and its structures that provide instruction. This chapter highlights parents (v. 1), public and religious traditions (v. 13), the words of the “wise” (v. 14), wise friends and advisers (v. 20; cf. 20:1), and public discipline (v. 24). No one can become wise without these structures and processes in place. And so, as our culture choses to withdraw from public life at a whim or breeze of public discomfort, the path to wisdom is increasingly less traveled.
In his death and resurrection Jesus did not save individuals alone. Within himself he formed a new spiritual house, a body, and a kingdom of priests (cf. 1 Corinthians 12; Eph. 1:22–23; 1 Peter 2). As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 12, the hand, foot, eye, head are all spiritually united and mutually interdependent. To become a Christian is to rise into life as one member in the united body of Christ, who drink of one Spirit and eat from one loaf (1 Cor. 10:17; 12:7–31).Proverbs 13
Proverbs 14