At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“He that hath knowledge spareth his words: And a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit” (Proverbs 17:27).

There are different variations on this theme. One American proverb says that it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

But this proverb is a bit different. The one who is in actual possession of real knowledge is economical with his words. He spares his words. Someone who is garrulous is not demonstrating insight to the whole world, but rather the opposite. The person with knowledge does not feel the need to unload the entire truck. He can look at his supply of words, select the best ones for the occasion, and bring them out as appropriate. And, as is the case in other areas as well, less is more.

This proverb is structured as a parallelism, not as a contrast. This means that the one with knowledge is paired with the “man of understanding,” and the one who “spareth his words” is paired with having an “excellent spirit.”

And this means that being economical with your words should not be confused with being taciturn and truculent. If a man goes to a party, and stands in the corner all evening with a little black rain cloud over his head, the few words (or grunts) that he utters are not a sign of an excellent spirit. Quite the opposite.

Rather, he places his words the same way that an excellent craftsman would place jewels in an intricately wrought ornament. “A word fitly spoken Is like apples of gold in pictures of silver” (Prov. 25:11). Just like real estate, the value of a word spoken the right way at the right time is a matter of location, location, location.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: And he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished” (Proverbs 17:5).

The Germans have a special word to describe the sin that this proverb targets. That word is schadenfreude, and it means to take pleasure or joy in the misfortune of another. For some, this is vindictive or vengeful, and would apply when the one suffering the misfortunate was an adversary of some sort. But for others it is more general. The person who takes this pleasure is simply someone who likes to hear about disasters.

This sin is addressed by the second half of the proverb. The one who rejoices over misfortunes is going to be punished for it. Even in the circumstance mentioned earlier, where the joy is brought about by the downfall of an enemy . . . even there we are cautioned.
“Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth: Lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him” (Proverbs 24:17–18).
This expression of the principle assumes that it is likely the case that your enemy needs to receive what he is getting, and one of the reasons for not gloating is that the Lord might see that and lay off.

The first part of the proverb addresses what seems to be simple unkindness or cruelty. Someone is poor, and the mocker comes to add insult to injury. This kind of cruelty loves to punch down, and the Scriptures will have none of it.
“Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:14).
The Lord is tender toward the poor and downtrodden, and He expects the very same demeanor from us.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“A soft answer turneth away wrath: But grievous words stir up anger” (Proverbs 15:1).

This proverb teaches us that the tongue has the capacity to avert quarrels, and to start them up.

The first half of the proverb has to do with the averting. In this situation, the wrath is incoming, but it is already there. Someone is angry with you about something, and when the conversation starts, they are coming in hot. Perhaps it was something you said or did, or also perhaps it was something that they thought you said or did. Let’s take the latter scenario, as it illustrates nicely the principle taught by the proverb.

Let us say that a well-meaning friend told this person that you had said xy and z, when you had not said that. You had said the opposite, and your well-meaning friend sometimes gets things garbled. But the person he told it to doesn’t know that, assumed it to be true, and it made him angry. This is why he comes after you, already angry. Now it is quite true that he should have remembered Proverbs 18:17, and if he had done, he would have come with questions instead of accusations. But alas, he is already angry when he arrives. If this sin of his makes you angry, and you respond in kind, then what you will have at the end of the day is a completely unnecessary fight. If you answer the initial charge softly, you have an opportunity to deescalate the situation, after which your angry friend apologizes. Well, sometimes he apologizes.

The second half of the proverbs tells us that grievous words also have the capacity to stir up anger. This would be the situation where you are the one who might be the instigator. So avoid overstating. Avoid hyperbole. Avoid words like always and never. Avoid grievous words. One of the reasons why people get defensive is that they see no other way to survive it. The cutting words they are hearing leave absolutely no slack.

So soft words have the ability to deescalate. And grievous words have the ability to escalate, and to do so from a standing stop.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: But perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit” (Proverbs 15:4).

We can see at a glance that a wholesome tongue is a good thing, and that a perverse tongue is a bad thing. That much is plain and simple.

But what kind of a good thing, and what kind of a bad thing?

It is quite striking that a wholesome tongue is described as a “tree of life.” The tree of life is what our first parents were shut away from when they were exiled from Eden (Gen. 3:22-24). If Adam and Eve had eaten from that tree in the condition there were in, that would have sealed their lost and rebellious condition. God banished them from the Garden as an act of kindness, leaving room for gospel mercy. In the last book of the Bible, the tree of life is promised to those who overcome through the gospel (Rev. 2:7; 22:2).

But in the book of Proverbs, the tree of life is associated with a number of things. Wisdom is a tree of life (Prov. 3:18). The fruit of righteousness is a tree of life (Prov. 11:30). Hope and desire fulfilled is a tree of life (Prov. 13:12).

The opposite of a wholesome tongue is a perverse tongue. What this does is create a breach in the spirit. What is a breach? It is a hole or an opening, through which unwanted things can come. Like a breach in a dam, and flood waters destroy the town, or a breach in a city wall, through which the enemy troops can pour. The wholesome tongue is life, growing on a tree of life. The perverse tongue is death, ministered in any number of different ways.

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At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)

“He that despiseth his neighbour sinneth: But he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he” (Proverbs 14:21).

The message of this proverb is that it is quite possible to sin close to home, and it is also quite possible to be gracious and merciful far away from home.

And of course, there are always ways to distort this. One distortion occurs when the people who live close to you (family and neighbors) are in a position to know what you are really like, while the folks at church see the smiling and very Christian version of you. The name for this particular pattern is hypocrisy.

Another way to violate the wisdom of this proverb would be by shutting yourself up in a tight little circle, family and friends only, and to forget those who have any needs far away from you—the “poor.” Then there is the reverse of this, where someone spends so much time down at the soup kitchen that they neglect their own family and friends. Remember that the apostle teaches us that someone who neglects their family is worse than an infidel (1 Tim. 5:18).

That said, we should make sure that we do not neglect the straightforward teaching of the proverb. Close acquaintance with anyone reveals faults, and when this happens, it is easy to drift into an attitude of contempt or despising. However justified you might feel in having that contempt, it is nevertheless tagged as sinning by Scripture. And the person who extends himself to have mercy on the poor is also doing something for himself as it turns out. “Happy is he,” the passage says. Of course that should not be his primary motive, but the Scriptures do clearly teach this principle. The man who loves his wife loves himself, the apostle says, and this means that it must not be wrong to have this in your mind somewhere. Self-interest is not the same thing as self-centeredness.

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