The Life-Giving Word and the Empty Heart Text: Proverbs 10:21
Introduction: Two Ways to Live
The book of Proverbs is relentlessly practical. It does not float in the ethereal regions of abstract theology; it walks on the ground, with dirt on its hands. It is concerned with how we live our lives, Monday through Saturday. And in this great book of wisdom, we are presented with a stark, recurring contrast. There are two paths, and only two. There is the way of wisdom, which is the way of righteousness, and there is the way of folly, which is the way of destruction. There is no third way, no middle ground, no demilitarized zone.
Every man, woman, and child is on one of these two roads. And the signposts that tell us which road a person is on are often found coming out of their mouths. Words are not just vibrations in the air. They are not neutral. Words are carriers of life or death. Jesus Himself tells us that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34). What is in the well comes up in the bucket. So when we come to a proverb like this one, we are getting a diagnostic tool. We are being shown how to evaluate the state of a man's soul by what his words produce in the world.
This verse sets up a sharp antithesis, a feature common to this section of Proverbs. On the one hand, you have the righteous man, whose speech is a source of nourishment and life for an entire community. On the other hand, you have the fool, who perishes precisely because he lacks the very wisdom that the righteous man is distributing. One man is a fountain, the other a cracked cistern. One is a feast, the other is a famine. And the hinge on which it all turns is the state of the heart before God.
The Text
"The lips of the righteous feed many, But ignorant fools die for lack of a heart of wisdom."
(Proverbs 10:21 LSB)
The Righteous as a Public Fountain (v. 21a)
Let us take the first clause:
"The lips of the righteous feed many..." (Proverbs 10:21a)
The first thing to notice is the subject: the righteous. In the biblical sense, righteousness is not about being a morally prim and proper individual who never puts a foot wrong. True righteousness is a relational concept. A righteous man is one who is rightly related to God through covenant faith. He trusts God, He fears God, and as a result, he is in a right standing with God. This is the man whose sins are forgiven and who has been clothed in a righteousness that is not his own. This is foundational. Without this imputed righteousness, all our attempts at "good advice" are just the blind leading the blind.
Now, what does this righteous man do? His lips "feed many." The image is one of nourishment, of life-giving sustenance. His words are not empty calories. They are not junk food. They are steak and potatoes for the soul. When he speaks, people are built up, strengthened, and sustained. Think of the different ways this happens. His words can be counsel in a time of confusion, encouragement in a time of despair, a gentle rebuke in a time of sin, or instruction in a time of ignorance. He is a walking feast. His speech is a public good, a community asset. He is like a well in the center of the village from which everyone can draw.
This is because his words are tethered to reality. They are grounded in the Word of God, which is the ultimate food for the soul. He is not dispensing his own personal opinions or the latest cultural fads. He has been feeding on God's law, and so what comes out of his mouth is the overflow of that feast. He has wisdom because he has gone to the source of wisdom. He can give a straight answer because he believes in a God who does not stutter.
This is a direct challenge to the modern evangelical notion of a privatized faith. The righteous man's faith is irrepressibly public. It leaks out of him. It blesses his family, his church, and his town. His lips feed many. The effect is widespread. This is part of our dominion mandate. We are to be culture-builders, and the foundational building block of any culture is its language, its discourse. A righteous people will have a culture where truth is spoken, where wisdom is honored, and where life is nourished by the words that are exchanged in the public square.
The Fool's Self-Imposed Famine (v. 21b)
The contrast could not be more stark. The second half of the verse shows us the opposite reality.
"...But ignorant fools die for lack of a heart of wisdom." (Proverbs 10:21b LSB)
Here we have the fool. In Proverbs, a fool is not someone with a low IQ. A fool is a moral category. He is the one who "has said in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1). He is the one who despises wisdom and instruction. He is willfully ignorant, not because he lacks access to information, but because he lacks a heart for it. The problem is not in his head; it is in his heart, which is the seat of his affections and commitments.
And what is the fate of the fool? He dies. While the righteous man is feeding a multitude, the fool is starving to death. And the reason for his demise is explicitly stated: "for lack of a heart of wisdom." The Hebrew here is "lack of heart" (hasar-leb). It signifies a deficiency in understanding, judgment, and moral sense. He has no internal governor, no compass. He is starving in a land of plenty. The righteous man is speaking words of life, but the fool has no ears to hear. His problem is not a lack of available food, but a lack of appetite for the right kind of food.
He would rather feed on garbage. The fool's lips, in contrast to the righteous, spew out slander, foolishness, lies, and filth. His words do not build up; they tear down. They do not nourish; they poison. And the first victim of his poisonous words is himself. He talks himself into ruin. He makes foolish business deals, he alienates his friends, he destroys his marriage, and ultimately, he hardens his heart against God. His death is not an accident; it is the necessary and inevitable consequence of his chosen diet. He dies because he is a fool, and his foolishness is a terminal condition.
Notice the tragedy of it. He dies for "lack of a heart of wisdom." The wisdom is available. The lips of the righteous are feeding many. But the fool will not eat. He is like a man dying of thirst who refuses to drink from the well because he is offended by the shape of the bucket. His pride, his rebellion, and his love for his own folly seal his doom. It is a spiritual suicide.
The Great Antithesis
So we have this great antithesis set before us. The righteous man is a life-giver because his heart is submitted to the wisdom of God. The fool is a death-bringer, starting with himself, because his heart is set against that wisdom. One is a producer, the other a consumer of death. One is a fountain of life, the other a vortex of destruction.
This proverb forces us to ask some hard questions. What are our words doing? Are we feeding anyone with what we say? When you speak to your spouse, your children, your co-workers, are you leaving them nourished or nauseated? Are you a well that people draw from, or are you a drain they circle?
The answer to that question depends entirely on the state of your heart. You cannot give what you do not have. If your heart is not being fed by the wisdom of God in Scripture, then your lips cannot feed others. You will have nothing to offer but the same stale, foolish opinions as the rest of the dying world.
But the good news of the gospel is that God can perform a heart transplant. He can take out the fool's heart of stone, which lacks all wisdom, and give us a heart of flesh, a heart that desires His instruction (Ezekiel 36:26). He does this through the ultimate Word, the Logos, Jesus Christ. Christ is the one whose lips perfectly and always fed the multitudes, not just with bread and fish, but with the words of eternal life.
And on the cross, He died the death of a fool, in our place. He was executed by foolish men who lacked the heart to see the wisdom of God standing right in front of them. He took our foolishness upon Himself, so that we, in turn, might be given His righteousness and His wisdom. When we are united to Him by faith, our hearts are changed. We begin to love wisdom. We begin to feed on His Word. And as we do, by the grace of God, our lips begin to change. They cease to be instruments of death and begin, haltingly at first, but increasingly, to be instruments that feed many, all for the glory of God.