The Orchard of the Mouth Text: Proverbs 13:2
Introduction: Two Appetites
The book of Proverbs is intensely practical, but it is not a book of disconnected moralisms for self-improvement. It is not a collection of fortune cookie inserts for a better life. The entire book is grounded in a fundamental, non-negotiable premise: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge" (Prov. 1:7). This means that all the wisdom contained within its pages flows from a right relationship with the covenant God of Israel. To read Proverbs without Christ is to read a farmer's almanac without believing in soil, sun, or rain. You might pick up a few handy tips, but you will miss the entire world it describes.
And that world, the world described in Proverbs, is a world of sharp contrasts. It is a world of light and darkness, wisdom and folly, righteousness and wickedness. There is no murky middle ground, no demilitarized zone. There are two paths, two destinations, and two kinds of people walking on them. Our text today sets before us one of the clearest diagnostic tools for determining which path a man is on. It does not look at his bank account, his resume, or his political affiliation. It looks at his mouth, and it listens to what comes out of it. And in so doing, it reveals his appetite. It reveals what his soul truly craves.
We are what we eat, and spiritually, we eat what we say. The world is starving for meaning, but it is gorging itself on the junk food of deceit, violence, and treachery. They have an appetite for destruction, and their words are the forks they use to consume it. But the righteous man, the man who fears God, has a different menu. He eats good things, and he finds this food growing in the orchard of his own mouth. This proverb, then, is about the ecology of the soul. Your heart is the soil, your words are the seeds, and your life is the harvest. What you say is what you get.
The Text
From the fruit of a man’s mouth he eats what is good,
But the soul of the treacherous desires violence.
(Proverbs 13:2 LSB)
The Good Fruit of a Good Mouth
We begin with the first clause, the principle of righteous speech:
"From the fruit of a man’s mouth he eats what is good..." (Proverbs 13:2a)
The metaphor is agricultural and inescapable. A man's mouth is like a tree. It produces fruit. And the kind of fruit it produces is the very food that man will eat for lunch. This is a closed system; you cannot plant thistle seeds and expect to harvest figs. You cannot speak words of bitterness, slander, and deceit, and then wonder why your life is filled with turmoil and strife. As James tells us, a spring does not send forth fresh and bitter water from the same opening (James 3:11). A man who speaks good things will, in turn, enjoy a good life.
What is this "good" that he eats? It is comprehensive. It is shalom. It is peace with God and peace with his neighbors. A man whose words are gracious, truthful, and wise will find that his relationships are stable. He builds trust. He defuses conflict. He encourages the fainthearted. His words create a world of order and blessing around him, and he gets to live in that world. Think of it in the most practical terms. A man who speaks respectfully to his wife enjoys a peaceful home. A man who speaks honestly with his employer keeps his job. A man who gives a soft answer turns away wrath and avoids a black eye. He is eating the good fruit that he himself planted with his lips.
But this goes deeper than mere pragmatism. The ultimate reason his words bear good fruit is because they are aligned with the ultimate reality, which is the Word of God Himself. Jesus Christ is the Logos through whom all things were made (John 1:1-3). A man who speaks truth is a man whose speech participates in the very structure of the cosmos. He is swimming with the current of reality. A man who lies, on the other hand, is trying to swim upstream against the entire created order. It is exhausting, and it is ultimately futile. The universe is designed to work in a certain way, and that way is the way of truth. When our words are true, we are in harmony with the grain of the universe.
This is why the mouth is an indicator of the heart. Jesus said it plainly: "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matt. 12:34). The fruit on the tree reveals the nature of the root. If the fruit is good, it is because the heart has been regenerated by the grace of God. The speech of a righteous man is good because God has made him good. He is not simply "being nice." He is speaking out of a transformed nature. His words are the overflow of a heart that loves God and is therefore oriented toward truth, goodness, and life.
The Violent Appetite of the Treacherous
The second clause presents us with the stark contrast. This is classic Hebrew parallelism, where the truth of the first line is thrown into sharp relief by its opposite.
"But the soul of the treacherous desires violence." (Proverbs 13:2b)
Notice the shift. The first man eats from the "fruit of his mouth." The second man's condition is described by the "desire of his soul." The proverb connects the mouth to the soul. The righteous man's mouth feeds his life with good things. The treacherous man's soul is a ravenous beast that craves violence. And how does this craving manifest? Through his mouth.
The word for "treacherous" here points to faithlessness, betrayal, and deceit. This is the man who breaks covenant. He gives his word and does not keep it. He smiles to your face and slanders you behind your back. He uses flattery as a weapon and truth as a casualty. He is a liar. And the Proverb tells us that the soul of this man, his inner being, has a deep and abiding hunger for violence.
Now, this violence is not always a matter of fists and clubs, though it certainly includes that. The treacherous man's primary instrument of violence is his tongue. His words are the weapons. Slander is violence against a man's reputation. Deceit is violence against the truth. A false witness in court commits judicial violence. Gossip is a form of social violence, tearing apart the fabric of a community. The treacherous man's words are not designed to build, but to destroy. He enjoys the chaos. He feeds on the strife he creates. His soul craves the turmoil that results from his faithless words.
Why? Because he is at war with God, and therefore he is at war with God's created order. The treacherous man hates the world of shalom that the righteous man builds. He is a son of the first liar, the serpent in the garden, whose treacherous words brought violence and death into a good creation. The serpent promised a feast, "you will be like God," but delivered a famine of death and exile. In the same way, the treacherous man believes his lies will profit him, but his soul is never satisfied. It just craves more violence, more chaos, more destruction. He is eating the wind and reaping the whirlwind.
Conclusion: The Ultimate Word
So we are left with two ways to live, revealed by two ways of speaking, flowing from two kinds of hearts. One man cultivates an orchard of good words and feasts on the fruit of peace and life. The other man, driven by a treacherous soul, desires violence and uses his words to bring it about, only to find himself consumed by the very chaos he creates.
This proverb drives us to a point of decision. What is the state of your orchard? What are you eating for lunch every day? Is your life filled with the good fruit of peace, trust, and stability? Or is it a constant diet of strife, suspicion, and turmoil? Look to your mouth for the answer. Your words are the diagnostic.
But if you look at your mouth and find that you have been planting and eating bitter fruit, the answer is not to simply try harder to say nice things. That is like taping apples to a thornbush and calling it an apple tree. The problem is not your vocabulary; the problem is your soul. You need a new heart. You need to be grafted into a new tree.
This is where the gospel crashes in. There was one man whose mouth was a perfect orchard of life. Jesus Christ spoke only what the Father gave Him to speak. His words were truth. His words brought healing. His words calmed storms. His words cast out demons. His words were the very words of life, and from the fruit of His mouth, He ate only what was good, perfect communion with His Father.
And yet, the treacherous, with souls desiring violence, took Him. They used the violence of false witness and slanderous accusations. They hung Him on a tree, a cursed tree, and He who had only ever produced good fruit was made a curse for us. Why? So that we, the treacherous, we who have desired violence in our hearts and spoken it with our mouths, could be forgiven.
Through faith in Him, our treacherous souls are cleansed. God gives us a new heart, a heart that no longer craves violence but desires righteousness. And from that new heart, the Holy Spirit begins to cultivate new fruit on the branches of our mouths. Our speech begins to change. We begin to produce the good fruit of truth, grace, and encouragement. And we begin, for the first time, to eat what is truly good, tasting the peace that comes from being reconciled to God through the Ultimate Word, Jesus Christ our Lord.