proverbs 18

Read Proverbs 18 at Bible Gateway.

The Hebrew paragraph divisions

Pro 10:1b-19:9 {p} Contrast between wise/ foolish, righteous/ wicked, rich/ poor

A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; From the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Pro 18:20

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit. Pro 18:21

I started looking for the chiastic structure of this section of Proverbs, seeing the repeating theme of the fruit of one’s lips or tongue. When I did a search for “fruit” in Proverbs, the search results themselves made a chiastic structure stretching from the beginning of the book to the end!

Fruit is Strong’s H6529, periy, a concrete noun, from Strong’s H6509  פרה  parah, a primitive root meaning “to bear fruit.” The pictographs are pey + resh + hey:

pey פ , ף = the mouth, thus open, blow, scatter, edge
resh ר = the head of man, thus head, first, top, beginning, man
hey ה = the man with upraised arms, thus look, reveal, wonder, worship, breath

To understand the story the pictographs are telling, we have to know something about threshing grain in ancient days:

“The heads of grains are scattered on the threshing floor, a smooth, hard and level surface. An ox is led around the floor crushing the heads, opening them to reveal the seed inside.” – Ancient Hebrew Lexicon

The story the pictographs are telling is of opening (pey) the head (resh) of grain which reveals (hey) the seed inside; i.e. acquiring seed. One of the nouns derived from this root is fruit, as that which the seed thus acquired produces.

The root from the ancient pictographs reveals that fruit comes from whatever seed is planted; good seed will produce good fruit, or life according to Pro 18:21, and bad seed will produce bad fruit, or death. Whatever fruit a man bears, that is the fruit he will eat, whether good (Pro 31:31) or bad (Pro 1:31).

So where do the seeds come from? Seeds come from sowers:

Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow …” Mat 13:3

And seeds are words which are sown in the heart:

“Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside.” Mat 13:18-19

God is constantly sowing seeds in us through His Word, if we hear it and receive it mixed with faith in our hearts:

For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. Heb 4:2

Just as an agricultural seed sown in the ground has to be watered to grow and bear fruit, so the spiritual seed of the Word of God must be mixed with faith in our hearts in order to grow and bear fruit.

The good news is, we can control which seed is sown in us, and therefore which fruit we will bear, whether good or bad. When we feed our eyes, ears, and mind on the Word of God, receiving it with faith or belief, then good seed is sown which will produce the good fruit of life and blessing. When we feed our eyes, ears, and mind of the word of the world or the word of the enemy (he is constantly sending his lies our way), then bad seed is sown which will produce the bad fruit of death and destruction.

We can purposely feed our hearts and minds with the good seed of the good fruit we need to produce in our lives, and we can purposely reject the bad seed of the lies of the enemy. We do not have to accept every thought that comes through the register of our minds if it is a negative thought or a bad seed contradictory to the Word of God. We can take thoughts – seeds – captive to make them obey Christ!

More: Training our hearts and minds to believe and feel truth