Commentary - Proverbs 10:31

Bird's-eye view

This proverb, like so many in this section of the book, presents a stark, black-and-white contrast between the righteous and the wicked. The central theme is the relationship between the heart and the mouth, and the ultimate destiny that our speech reveals. The righteous man's mouth is a source of life, a wellspring of wisdom that nourishes and builds up. It is like a fruit tree that consistently produces good fruit because its roots are sunk deep into good soil. In contrast, the wicked man's tongue is a twisted, perverse instrument. It does not produce; it only distorts and destroys. The proverb concludes with the absolute certainty of divine judgment. The life-giving speech of the righteous is a sign of his secure standing, while the destructive speech of the wicked marks him for excision. God will not tolerate the cancerous growth of perverse speech in His world forever; it will be cut out.

This is a fundamental spiritual diagnostic. You want to know the state of a man's heart? Don't look at his hands in the offering plate or his knees on the prayer cushion first. Listen to his mouth. What comes out when he is squeezed? What is the constant drift of his conversation? Is it wisdom, which is to say, skill in godly living? Or is it perversion, a twisting of God's created order? The mouth reveals the man, and God will judge the man the mouth reveals.

Outline

Context In Proverbs

Proverbs 10 marks a shift in the book. The first nine chapters consist of longer, thematic discourses, primarily from a father to a son, extolling Lady Wisdom and warning against Dame Folly. Beginning in chapter 10, we get into the thick of the individual proverbs, which are typically two-line couplets. This verse, 10:31, sits in a collection of antithetical proverbs, where the way of the righteous is constantly set against the way of the wicked. The surrounding verses deal with themes of wealth, labor, integrity, and especially the power of speech. For example, the preceding verse says the righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not inhabit the land (Prov 10:30). The following verse continues the theme of speech, noting that the lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse (Prov 10:32). So, our verse is part of a dense cluster of teachings that link righteous speech to stability and life, and wicked speech to perversion and judgment.

Key Issues

The Fruitful and the Futile

The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, but it is not a mere collection of self-help tips for a prosperous life. It is grounded in a profound theological reality: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This means that all the practical advice in the book flows from a right relationship with God. A man is not righteous because he has mastered a set of communication techniques. A man speaks wisdom because he is righteous. The righteousness is foundational. It is a gift of God, a covenant status. And from that status, from that renewed heart, flows a renewed life, and a central part of that renewed life is renewed speech.

This proverb is not telling you how to get saved by talking nicely. It is describing what happens when God saves a man. His mouth begins to bear fruit. The alternative is a tongue that is twisted, warped, and ultimately useless for its created purpose. God made the tongue to praise Him and to build up our neighbor. The perverse tongue does the opposite. And because God is a God of justice and not of eternal tolerance for rebellion, that which is set against His purposes will ultimately be destroyed. The image of being "cut out" is violent and final. It is the language of judgment, of being removed from the covenant community like a diseased branch is pruned from a vine.

Verse by Verse Commentary

31a The mouth of the righteous bears wisdom,

The first clause sets up the positive side of the antithesis. The key players are "the mouth" and "the righteous." The mouth is the instrument, but the righteous man is the source. The relationship is organic. The verb here, often translated "brings forth" or "bears," is the language of agriculture. A healthy tree bears good fruit. It doesn't struggle or strain to do it; it is the natural result of what it is. In the same way, the righteous man's mouth naturally produces wisdom. Wisdom here is not abstract philosophy or a high IQ. Biblical wisdom (chokmah) is skill in the art of godly living. It is knowing the right thing to do or say in a particular situation to honor God and love your neighbor. So, the righteous man's speech is constructive. It is helpful. It brings clarity, offers sound counsel, speaks truth, and encourages holiness. This is because his heart is aligned with God's reality. He sees the world as it is, and so his words correspond to that reality. This is the fruit of a life rooted in the fear of the Lord.

31b But the tongue of perversions will be cut out.

Now we see the dark contrast. The subject shifts from "the mouth of the righteous" to "the tongue of perversions." The word for perversions refers to that which is twisted, distorted, or turned from the right way. This is a tongue that speaks lies, slander, gossip, blasphemy, and foolishness. It takes the truth and warps it. It takes reality and turns it upside down. It calls good evil and evil good. This isn't just a slip of the tongue; it is a tongue characterized by perversity. Its whole output is crooked. And what is its destiny? It "will be cut out." This is the language of final, decisive judgment. It is an image of excision. In the Old Covenant, a person could be "cut off" from the people for high-handed sin. Here, the instrument of the sin is itself the target of the judgment. God will not allow the constant flow of verbal poison to continue indefinitely. There comes a point where the divine Judge steps in and silences the perverse tongue for good. This is not just a natural consequence; it is an active, judicial sentence carried out by God. In the context of the new covenant, we see the ultimate fulfillment of this in the final judgment, where every idle word will be accounted for, and those who are not found in Christ will be cast out.

Application

The application of this proverb ought to strike us with some force. James warns us that the tongue is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. We have all felt the burn of our own words and the words of others. This proverb forces us to see our speech not as a series of isolated incidents, but as the fruit of a tree. What kind of fruit is your mouth consistently producing?

If you are a Christian, you are righteous in Christ. That is your position, your standing before God. But we are also called to live out that righteousness. This means we are in a lifelong process of learning to make our speech conform to our new identity. When perverse things come out of our mouths, gossip, slander, coarse joking, faithless complaining, we must not shrug it off. We must see it for what it is: the fruit of a fleshly root that still needs to be mortified. We must confess it as sin and ask the Holy Spirit to give us control of our tongues, to make our mouths fountains of wisdom, not sewers of perversion.

And for the one who finds that his tongue is nothing but perversions, this proverb is a terrifying warning. Your speech is a witness against you, testifying that your heart is not right with God. The sentence has already been published: a tongue of perversions will be cut out. The only escape is to flee to the one whose speech was perfect wisdom, Jesus Christ. He never spoke a perverse word. On the cross, He bore the judgment for all our perverse words. He was "cut off" from the land of the living so that we, by faith in Him, could be grafted into the vine of life. Only when we are united to Him can our mouths begin to truly bear the fruit of wisdom, to the glory of God.