Question.1252 - WORKSHEET ON PROVERBS Prov 18:20-21 & the Power of the Tongue Directions & Questions Proverbs 18:21a Death and life are in the power of the tongue (Prov 18:21a KJV). The tongue has the power of life and death (Prov 19:21a NIV) What are some different interpretations that you have heard for this verse? Answer in at least 50 words of formal prose. Immediate Context: Proverbs 18:20-21 20?From the fruit of their mouth a persons stomach is filled; with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied. 21?The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit (Prov 18:20-21 NIV) How does the context of the whole proverb help shape the meaning of the verse? What do you think this proverb could mean? Answer in at least 100 words of formal prose. Basic Research Read the excerpts from the three commentaries at the end of this document and then come back to reflect further on what Proverbs 18:20-21 probably meant, as well as what guidance the proverb provides for us today. Answer in at least 150 words of formal prose. Appendix Commentary 1 Duane Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, NAC 14 (Nashville, TN: B&H, 1993), 166. TYPE: THEMATIC, CATCHWORD (18:20-21). 18:20-21 There is little doubt that these two verses go together; what is much more in question is the meaning of the verses. Some scholars take fruit to refer to consequences, good or evil, that follow upon one's words. The point would be that one must bear the consequences of one's words. An alternative view is that fruit here is good fruit as opposed to barrenness. The meaning would be that speech is powerful and the wise use it economically in order to achieve the intended result. Through the careful choice of words, their language is fruitful. In my view neither is satisfactory. On the one hand, the statement that people are satisfied with the fruit (v. 20) excludes the view that good or bad consequences are in view. No one is satisfied with something that does not have its intended effect. On the other hand, not all fruit is good, as the text implies in speaking of tongues' having the power of death, a destructive force (v. 21). Rather, v. 20 asserts that people have a sense of self-satisfaction about their own words. To put it another way, they delight in airing their own opinions. And yet the tongue can be highly dangerous. The purpose of these verses is to warn against being too much in love with ones own words. One should recognize the power of words and use them with restraint. Voicing ones own views, here ironically described as eating the fruit of the tongue, can be an addictive habit with dangerous results. Commentary 2 Derek Kidner, Proverbs, TNTC 17 (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1964), 123. Accordance. 18:20, 21. Your words will catch up with you. The second of this pair of proverbs, with its warning to the talkative, throws a sobering light on the first. Both of them urge caution, for satisfied (20) can mean sated: the meaning, good or bad, will depend on the care taken. Moffatt paraphrases 20 well, but one-sidedly: A man must answer for his utterances, and take the consequences of his words. Oesterley quotes the witty saying of Ahikar: My son, sweeten thy tongue, and make savoury the opening of thy mouth; for the tail of a dog gives him bread, and his mouth gets him blows. Commentary 3 Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs, Word 22 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 137-38, 140, 95-96. Accordance. 20-21 The catch word fruit unites these verses, which deal with the effects of speech. See the Comments on 12:14 and especially 13:2, and the treatment by W. B?hlmann, Vom rechten Reden, 30315, 31821. 20 Broadly interpreted, this proverb might appear to be neutral: one must bear the responsibility for whatever one says. But it is more likely that to be sated (the word occurs twice) indicates that the fruit is good; if it were not, would one eat so much of it? Whybray points out the oxymoron, which Alonso Schokel calls a paradox, in v 20a: How can one be sated by what comes out, instead of what goes into it? This figure is settled in the next line which makes the first line explicit; the fruit is speech, and presumably good, not bad, speech. Satiety to the belly is merely following out the metaphor which began with the consumption of fruit; the point is the happiness brought about by good words. 21 The significance of speech is [vol. 22, p. 138] intensified by the reference to death and life. Since these are particularly the domain of the Lord, there is a strong affirmation of the power (literally hand) of the tongue. Does this refer to the speaker or those he addresses? Perhaps both. There is a similar proverb in Sir 37:18 concerning the power of the tongue over life and death. It is not clear what it in love it refers to. It seems to be the tongue and so would refer to the possibility of talking foolishly or wisely. This would seem to include the alternative of life/death. See also the Comment on 13:2. [p. 140] At first sight vv 2021 seem clear enough. The mention of mouth and lips in v 20 refers to words or speech, but not without subtleties, as the Comment above indicates. V 21 has received various translations, pointed out by J. G. Williams (Semeia 17 [1980] 5355). He emphasizes that death and life are in the hand (power) of the tongue; those who love her will eat of her fruit. What is the fruit in her hand that she offers to those who love her? Here Williams makes a bold semiotic move, illustrative of the intertextuality that is so cultivated in our times, and interprets the verse in the light of Gen 3. The image of the tongue-as-speech, represented as a figure holding fruit is that of the woman in the garden of Eden. She is the unspoken comparison, the one who transmits knowledge of good and evil (p. 54). This picture suggests that the offering is an open one: life instead of death? Or life and death? When this saying is framed in the story of Eve, new vistas are opened up that go beyond the literal meaning of the saying, and forge a theological interpretation in the light of another biblical work. But as it stands, the life and death in v 21, against the background of the statements about speech in the book of Proverbs, seems simply to underline the power of the tongue; it can go either way. On Proverbs 13:2-3 [p.95-96] 2-3 Both of these sayings deal with speech. 2 The fruit of the mouth is idiomatic for words, and the phrase is found in 12:14 and again in 18:20 (all three passages analyzed in W. B?hlmann, Vom rechten Reden, 30615). L. Alonso Schokel explains the image: the mouth eats the fruits of a tree or the earth; but also the mouth is a tree that produces fruits that it has to eat. Language is not neutral, not sterile; it initiates a process that will come back to its origin, as a strict result. Although good things are specified here, the image can be applied to good or evil without distinction, as 18:21 (see the Comment there) makes clear: the tongue produces life and death. Line b (with ????, desire, the catch word for vv 24) intensifies line a by describing both the food and the yield from the greedy or treacherous: violence. It is not simply the words, but the desire, or ????, that issues in violence. 3 The ideal of the sage is the person who exercises self-control, especially as regards speech, e.g., 10:19, 21 and cf. 21:23. The contrast in this verse is between the silent type who chooses words well, and the fool whose open mouth is full of mere chatter (cf. Eccl 10:1214a) that turns out to be ruinous to himself; cf. 18:7. See the Explanation in chap. 11.

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