Proverbs 25:27-28

PROVERBS 25:27

Like Genesis 1-2, this section of Proverbs 25 establishes a rhythm of “good” and then declares something “not good.” “Good” it is to live in the corner of the roof, and “good” news refreshes the soul; but it is “not good” to eat too much honey. Chapters 24-25 are obsessed with honey. Honey is like wisdom (24:13), sweet to the taste. Eat honey, but not too much, lest you vomit (v. 16). And then verse 27, warning again against eating too much honey. Honey is sweet, so is glory. But too much makes you sick. So, don’t eat so much of the pleasures of life that you become sick of them.

According to the NASB translation, the second line is also negative: Just as it is not good to eat too much honey, so it is not good to search after one’s on glory. It’s a warning against pursuing the sweetness of fame and glory, which is just as sickening as eating too much honey. That is an understandable translation, and is certainly wise. How many people who pursue and gain fame later regret it?

In fact, thought, the second line is more puzzling in the Hebrew. Literally, it is “and searching their glory glory.” The negatives of the NASB translation are supplied by the translators, and the implication that the verse is a warning against the pursuit of glory doesn’t get the word “search” right (Heb. haqar ), which doesn’t mean “strive after” but “study” or “explore.”

Keil and Delitzsch resolve the verse by a slight emendation to the word translated as “their glory” and suggest that it is actually the related word ( kebed ), which means “burdensome” and “heavy.” Thus, they suggest that Luther gets the idea of the first clause though not the second: “he who searches into difficult things, to him it is too difficult.” They suggest rather that it should be translated “he who searches into difficult things, to him it is glory.” Or, explorare gravia grave est, so long as grave is understood as respect, honor, weight. The verse plays on the various meanings of the Hebrew root kbd : To search weighty things lends one weight, to search into burdensome things is a glory. The verse then matched the opening proverb of the chapter: “the glory ( kabod ) of kings is to search out ( haqar ) a matter” (v. 2), adding the gloss that there is a particular glory in searching out things that are burdensome.

Thus, the verse is not a warning against pursuit of glory, but a contrast between the dangers of over-consumption of things that are sweet to the taste but light and the challenge of exploring things that require diligent and persistent effort. It is a glory to explore matters (so Keil and Delitzsch) that “appear to surpass the available strength.” Study and the search for understanding is a burden, Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes, but it is a glorious burden.

Think of how this might apply to our entertainments. Honey is good, and so are the sweets of pop culture’s movies and music. They are accessible, easy to grasp, delightful to the taste. But we can become satiated on them, and there is glory in the burden of trying to crack the code of some difficult poem or piece of music. Solomon doesn’t tell us to avoid honey; he only tells us that the glories, and even the ultimate pleasures, of burdensome explorations are superior.

PROVERBS 25:28

A man is like a city, Solomon suggests. The analogy is more obvious in the Hebrew word order: “A city broken down without walls, a man who is without restraint of spirit.” The syntax is parallel, and highlights the connection between the “broken” or “spread-out” city and the man without restraint.

He has said something like this before. In Proverbs 16:32, Solomon says that the one who is slow to anger is better than a mighty man (because He is like the ultimate Mighty Man, Yahweh, who is slow to anger), and the one who rules his spirit is better than the one who captures a city. In this case, ruling the spirit is a kind of conquest; it is like conquering an opponent’s city. In 25:28, the image is reversed, and the man who governs his spirit is on the defensive, resisting a siege. If he lacks control of his spirit, he might as well try to hole up in an unwalled city.

The two images work together. On the one hand, controlling our spirit – our passions, our emotions, our ambitions – is a conquest. There is an enemy within that must be besieged and beaten. On the other hand, controlled spirit is a kind of wall that provides defense against attacks. This is an interesting analogy. Restraining the spirit seems to be keeping something in; we feel angry, but we don’t let that anger burst out against others. But Solomon is saying that restraining the spirit is not (only) keeping something in, caging up the beast, but keeping things out. A man without restraint of spirit has no defenses against enemies.

The word for “broken” can mean “spread out” (Genesis 28:14) or “increase” (Genesis 30:30). Perhaps we are to see the city as not only defenseless, but also as boundary-less. A man without restraint of spirit spills out everywhere, doesn’t have any center to his life.