PROVERBS 25:23
This verse gives us a translation issue in the first line. The NASB translates the line “The north wind brings forth rain,” but the KJV says that the north wind “drives away rain.” The verb in question has a range of applications and uses, but the basic idea is of twisting or turning. It sometimes refers to a whirling dance (Judges 21:21 ), sometimes to trembling in fear (Deuteronomy 2:25 ; Joel 2:6), and, because twisting can also be a method of binding, to strength and stability (in many translations, Psalm 10:5).
It can also mean writhing in anguish or pain, and in these contexts specifically to writhing in the pangs of childbirth (Isaiah 13:8; 23:4; 26:18: 66:7-8). Isaiah 54:1 encourages barren Jerusalem to rejoice in spite of being childless: “break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not labored.” When it means “bring forth,” it continues to have this connotation; that is, it refers to bringing forth through the pain of childbirth. In Proverbs 25:23, the picture is of a twisting, tumultuous north wind giving birth to rain.
There may be some significance in the fact that the wind is said to come from the north. Goats and sheep were sacrificed on the north side of the altar (Leviticus 1:11 ), and there are some hints that the “north” was considered the region of Yahweh (Psalm 48:1-3; Isaiah 41:25). Yahweh’s judgment arises in the north, from Babylon , even though Babylon is just as much east as north of Israel (Jeremiah 1:13 -19; 4:6; 6:1) and eventually a new Israel is gathered from the north country (Zechariah 2:6).
Two more details and we can put the pieces together and begin to allegorize. The word for “wind,” as is usual in the Hebrew Bible is ruach , which, like the Greek pneuma , also means “spirit” and “breath.” Ruach is what gives order to creation (Genesis 1:2) and to the postdiluvian new creation (Genesis 8:1), and Yahweh strives with fleshly men by His ruach (Genesis 6:17 ). Possessing ruach is what gives life to all animate creatures (Genesis 6:17; 7:15, 22). Hence, a wind coming from the north could refer to the Spirit arriving from the north, as it does in Ezekiel 1:4.
Finally, the word for “rain” refers mainly to heavy showers, sometimes necessary for fertility but sometimes violent and destructive (there’s another Hebrew term for rain in general). The flood is “rain” in this sense (Genesis 7:12 ; 8:2; cf. Ezekiel 38:22), the first such rain in the Bible. Ezekiel 34:26 uses this word to describe the blessings that Yahweh promises to shower on His people; it won’t be a trickle but a flood.
Allegorically: The Spirit is the womb of God and, coming down from the north, showers life-giving, refreshing rain. Or, allegorically: The Spirit is the womb of God and, coming from the north, unleashes a destructive flooding rain (note the combination of wind anger, and flooding rain in Ezekiel 13:13 ). But Israel is also the “wind” of God, scattered “as” the four winds (Zechariah 2:6), and so the wind coming from the north to shower the land could also refer to the restoration of exiles from the “land of the north.” In any allegorical reading, the line suggests that the wind/spirit brings forth the rain/showers through a travail of birth. The Spirit twists, grieves, strives in order to bring forth rains of blessing; or, the Spirit twists and writhes in anger to give birth to flooding destruction.
So far, this is just the first term in a simile: The wind/spirit from the north that gives birth to rain is like something else. What? That’s a problem too. As the NASB has it, the terms of comparison are:
North wind is like a tongue of secrecy
Rain is like an angry face.
Thus, a tongue of secrecy gives birth to anger in the same way that the north wind gives birth to rain. The problem with this is that the Hebrew word order is different. The KJV gets the second line right: “so an angry countenance a backbiting tongue,” but misses the point by mistranslating the verb in the first line as “drives away.” So, the comparison is this:
North wind is like an angry face.
Rain is like a tongue of secrecy.
The north wind travails to bring rain; so an angry face [travails] to bring a secret tongue.
Now, what sense, if any, can we make of that? The connection between north wind and an angry face is explicable on the grounds we’ve been exploring. The Lord is in the north, the Spirit is His wind, and by His Spirit He brings wrath. God’s anger is the stirring of His Spirit, the expression of the anger of His “face.” Usually, Yahweh’s anger and face are linked because Yahweh turns His face in His anger (Deuteronomy 31:17; Psalm 27:9; Isaiah 54:8). But, the Lord’s anger is described as the burning of his nose, and when His Spirit stirs His countenance darkens.
The problem is to make sense of the second part of the comparison, and the problem is compounded by bad translations. The word translated in the NASB as “backbiting” means only “hidden, secret, veiled.” It often refers to a place of security and protection, the “secret place of Yahweh” (Psalm 27:5; 31:20; 32:7; 61:4; 91:1). Nowhere else does it remotely have the idea of “backbiting,” though admittedly there is almost no other passage where the word modifies “tongue.”
The other passage where the two words are used together may illuminate our passage: Psalm 31:20 says “ You hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the conspiracies of man; You keep them secret ly in a shelter from the strife of tongue s.” Here, the secre t place is the place of Yahweh’s protection against tongues that make evil plans. The tongue is not secret, as in Proverbs 25, but open; what is kept in secret is the one who is being spoken against. Proverbs 25:23 may be taken as an inverse: There is public anger, and a secret tongue.
Let’s put all this together and see what Solomon is saying about life in the world. The comparison is between the violent, whirling wind of the north naturally giving birth to heavy rain on the one hand, and the violent, whirling anger of a countenance driving tongues into secret. We might take this positively. Remembering that Solomon is speaking to a prince, his son, this might be advice about the need to put on an angry face to stop evil tongues. Anger drives tongues into hiding, so that criticism is whispered rather than spoken openly. That’s possible, but it’s equally possible to take it as a warning: An angry king will be spoken against, but he will not be spoken against to his face. There will be no public criticism, which may be an advantage in some respects, since it implies that public discourse will be harmonious and supportive. But it won’t keep tongues from wagging; it only drives those tongues into hiding. Just as the north wind brings a flood that pounds down the crops, so a king’s anger pounds down his subjects.
Not only are there public, political ramifications; there are also family implications. A house governed by an angry countenance may have an appearance of harmony and peace. None of the kids talk back, and the wife is meek and compliant. But that is only an illusion; tongues don’t speak openly, but they are still speaking. Sometimes anger needs to silence wicked tongues; but perpetual anger creates a climate of fear.
PROVERBS 25:24
Verse 24 assumes the domestic architecture of the ANE. The man is not pictured living precariously in the corner of a sloped roof, but in the corner of a flat roof that functioned as another room for the house, a room that could catch the cool evening breezes. Of course, the cool roof room is also exposed to weather and the night cold, so it is not an ideal place to live. But it is better for a man to live there than to live with a contentious wife.
Interestingly, the verses begins with the Hebrew word “good” ( tov ). The first uses of this word are, of course, found in the creation account, repeatedly. And once Genesis 1 has established the rhythm – it’s good, good, good, good – the text interrupts with “not good” (2:18). It is not good for a man to be alone, but, on the other hand, it is more good to be alone than to be with a contentious wife. There are worse fates than loneliness.
The verb used for “dwell” is a very common verb in Hebrew. One of its meanings is “sit,” and it means “dwell” because it refers to settling/sitting permanently. The verb is sometimes used for enthronement (Psalm 80:2; 99:1; 122:5). Perhaps the sense of “dwelling,” then, is that our dwelling is the place of enthronement, rest, rule. A man’s house is his castle and his palace. But the man in our proverb has restricted his domain not to a nutshell but to a corner of the roof.
What drives him to the roof is the contentiousness of his wife. The word for “contention” has its root in the verb dyn , the punning basis for the name of the tribe of Dan (Genesis 30:6). It means “judge,” and gives the word in Proverbs 25:24 a legal connotation. The man retreats to the roof of the house because he is constantly being put on trial by his wife. As soon as he comes home, he is being interrogated under the Klieg lights, and everything he does is judged harshly. He is no longer the king and judge in his own house, but a beleaguered defendant.
Solomon has in mind literal husbands and wives, but the Proverb also manifests one of the patterns of redemptive history. Yahweh is the true husband, who sits enthroned in His house; He dwells among His people, and commits Himself to His bride. His bride, however, is a contentious bride, complaining and grumbling about Him, putting Him on trial (as at Massah and Meribah). Jesus comes as the Bridegroom, and John’s gospel shows that the Jews immediately subject Him to interrogation. The whole of John’s gospel is a trial. At several points in the Bible, Yahweh abandons His contentious bride, moving from the house of His glory to the corner of the roof.
PROVERBS 25:25
The image in the first line is of a languishing, fainting person who finds water. “Weary” connotes thirst, but the word is often used in connection with exertion, especially the exertion of journey (Genesis 25:29-30; Deuteronomy 25:18). The man is wandering in the desert, looking for an oasis, and finds one. He is like the fainting deer panting for the waterbrooks (Psalm 42:1-4); his flesh is yearning like one in a dry and weary land where there is no water (Psalm 63:1). Israel is in this condition in the wilderness, fainting and thirsty until Yahweh makes water flow from the rock.
“Cold” water reminds us of Proverbs 25:13, where a faithful messenger is like refreshing snow in the midst of the heart and labor of harvest. In verse 25, the cold water is not the messenger but the message, the good news itself. As water revives, refreshes, renews, cools, so good news does the same for the soul. The water also reminds us of the exhortation to give drink to our enemies (v. 21). If we give a cup of water to refresh an enemy, how much more ought we to give refreshing good news.
As often in the Hebrew Bible, “soul” here is not simply a “spiritual” reality within man. It refers to the life of the man himself, and is refreshed by literal food and drink. When we say “his soul was refreshed,” we’re usually thinking about “spiritual refreshment.” Hebrews would have thought just as much of physical refreshment.
Why does the news come from a “distant land”? It may be that the news is a surprise; unexpected good news is refreshing. Or, it may be that the distance is another way of highlightin g the yearning hopefulness d escribed in the first line. Searching for cold water in the desert is like hoping for good news from afar, from a place over which we have no control, from the horizon.
“Good news” inevitably, and rightly, conjures up the gospel. The gospel is cold water in a thirsty world, news from a distant land.
PROVERBS 25:26
Verse 26 describes the conflict between the righteous and the wicked. The righteous is supposed to stand firm before the wicked. It is not enough for the righteous man to be righteous “in himself” or in some bubble of non-conflict. He must be righteous in public, in public contention with the wicked, in battle. The verb “give way” refers to movements of various kinds – slipping, sliding, tottering, falling. Righteous men are not supposed to collapse when they face the resistance of the wicked.
Solomon compares the righteous man who does totter and fall before the wicked to a trodden spring. The modifier “trampled” is used elsewhere only in Ezekiel (32:2; 34:18) to describe a river whose waters are made undrinkable because someone has tramped through and stirred up mud. The water in a trample spring is undrinkable. The other image is similar: The weak righteous man is like a “ruined well.” “Ruin” follows when, for example, an army lays waste to a kingdom. The well is, again, not useful for drinking.
The obverse of this proverb is that the righteous man is supposed to be a clear spring and a well of clean water. He is supposed to provide refreshment and fertility to the world around him. But he can do that only if he stands firmly against the wicked. If he gives way, then whatever he produces will be useless; it will not be drinkable, it won’t cleanse, it won’t produce fruit.