Proverbs 18a

18: 2.   A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, 

but only in expressing personal opinion.

Ho boy! I didn’t write this stuff, but I love it. Nearly 3000 years after they were written, these proverbs are so 2024!

So who is the fool who cannot be bothered doing research, or reading the work of scientists, social scientists, and medical science researchers? Who is the fool who ignores geography, can only guess at history, and yet pretends that this is the biggest, the greatest, or the worst in the world or in the history of the world?

Yes, Africa is a continent, not a country. Africa is 39% larger than North America, though some maps deceive us. The population of North America is only 41% of the population of Africa. One country out of 55 countries in Africa, Nigeria alone  has a population that is 65% as large as the U.S. population, and Nigeria and Ethiopia together have a larger population than the United States. Russia has only 42% of the population of the United States; while the United States has only 24% of the population of India, or 24% of the population of China (India and China are about the same). 

That’s only one small area of facts that get turned and twisted all the time. Don’t get me started. The point is a simple one: A fool takes no pleasure in doing the work to understand, but only wants to hear himself express personal opinions as if they were wise statements.

18: 6-8.  A fool’s lips bring strife,

and a fool’s mouth invites a flogging.

The mouths of fools are their ruin,

and their lips a snare unto themselves.

The words of a tale-teller are like dainty morsels; 

they go down into the inner parts of the body.

Jesus’ warning about “false prophets” ended with these words: “Thus you will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7: 15-20). Do you know a fool? See who stirs up division and conflict every chance he gets to speak. If he stirs up strife, that person is probably a fool. Flogging was the prerogative of judges in those days; so a fool bringing strife invites a court’s judgment.

Of course, a fool, unless he can back it up with coercive power, usually overruns his mouth so that the audience can see through his performance. Hitler was a laughing-stock. He even served time in jail,  until he was able to organize a dedicated following, first in the Brown Shirts, then with the “Schutzstaffel” or ‘SS’. Finally, Hitler pressured the military to follow his commands; and you know the rest. His mouth, coupled with pride, was his ruin, and his speech ensnared him until he even believed his own folly.

The last sentence in this set of proverbs is very insightful. The NRSV translates the Hebrew word as ‘whisperer’, but I do not think that that is strong enough. At first, I wondered if it meant one who speaks with a soft voice, which is a good thing according to Proverbs 15: 1. But, when I compared other translations, I read words like ‘talebearer’, ‘gossip’, and ‘slanderer’. This is the value of checking more than one translation for a reading that is not clear.

The Common English Bible puts it this way: “There is nothing so delicious as gossip! It melts in your mouth.” Yes, gossip is almost impossible to resist. Slander draws us in. Do you ever find yourself scrolling down through ‘news feeds’, then you look up to see that an hour has gone by? You eat food for 15 minutes, and it goes to your stomach. Where does slander go?

Proverbs anticipates our studies in social psychology today. Words have an effect on us; they change the way that we think about and act towards others, even if we try to resist. As we have heard, “If you tell a lie big enough and often enough, people will come to believe it.” That quote is attributed to Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Propaganda Minister. However, its source is much older, and its power was understood all the way back to the first kingdoms and empires. The rock carvings, friezes and frescoes of all the pharaohs are attempts to rewrite history in their favor. “I did win that battle against the barbarians; I just had to leave early.”

Thank God for fact-checkers and multiple witnesses with multiple voices about people and events. The Bible repeatedly requires more than one voice or witness to verify an account. In fact, a proverb in this chapter emphasizes the importance of listening to contesting voices. 

18: 17. The one who first states a case seems right,

until the other comes and cross-examines.

A fool takes no pleasure in learning, or in taking the time to get the whole story. Again, proverbs is on it, like white on rice. 

18: 13. If one gives an answer before hearing,

it is folly and shame.