Proverbs 15 · Passage · Meekness
A Gentle Answer Turns Away Wrath
In 1 Samuel 25 Abigail met David and his armed men on their way to Nabal's house, and her words turned them back.
Abigail loaded two hundred loaves and five butchered sheep on donkeys and rode out to meet an angry David without telling her husband.
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
- The passage
- Proverbs 15:1, 1 Samuel 25:10 to 35
- Books
- Proverbs, 1 Samuel
- Hold in memory
- Proverbs 15:1
Summary
Proverbs 15:1 promises that anger can be turned back by the way it is answered. First Samuel 25 tells both halves of the saying in one chapter. Nabal's insult moved David to arm about four hundred men and swear that none of Nabal's men would live until morning, and the answer that stopped him came from Nabal's own wife. The chapter shows meekness in the one who answered and in the one who listened, for David heeded a woman of the house that had wronged him.
- In the Hebrew the gentle answer is a soft answer, the word used of what is tender, and the harsh word is a word that hurts.
- Abigail took the blame on herself, called her husband's folly by its name and warned David of needless bloodshed before he could answer her.
- David blessed the LORD and Abigail's discernment for keeping him from avenging himself by his own hand.
- Proverbs counts the one who is slow to anger better than a warrior, so the gentle answer is the strength of a governed temper.
The Proverb, Word by Word
The saying has two lines of four Hebrew words each, the soft answer and its effect, then the hurtful word and its effect.
The first verse of Proverbs 15 is a saying of two lines about the moment an answer is owed to someone who is angry. It belongs to meekness, the gentleness Scripture asks of a person toward those who wrong or provoke him, because it shows that gentleness in the choice of words. Anger meets every reader at home, at work and in the church, and the proverb speaks to the reply that comes next.
The question is how a soft reply can quiet someone's rage, and what Abigail's words did to David's anger in 1 Samuel 25. The answer is drawn from the Hebrew of the saying, from the sayings of Proverbs and James 1:19 to 20 on the slow temper, and from Abigail's own words in verses 24 to 31. Augustine, John Gill, John Wesley and Adam Clarke explained the proverb or recorded it in practice.
The first line in Hebrew is maaneh rakh yashiv chemah, which the store's interlinear glosses word by word as an answer, soft, it turns away, rage. The second line is u-devar etsev yaaleh af, glossed and a word of, hurt, it raises, anger. Both verbs stand in the hiphil, the causative stem, so the answer is what turns the rage back and the word is what makes the anger rise.
Rakh is an adjective of touch. The STEP Bible lexicon defines it as tender, literally or figuratively, and by implication weak, and it stands in sixteen verses of the Hebrew Bible. Abraham chose a tender calf in Genesis 18:7 with this word, and Job 41:3 uses it for speaking softly.
Proverbs uses rakh once more for speech, in a saying that pairs patience with a gentle tongue.
Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.The soft tongue of this verse overcomes a hard resistance, which shows that the softness of Proverbs 15:1 has power in it.
The Hebrew of Proverbs 25:15 opens with be-orekh appayim, glossed by length of anger, the idiom the Berean text renders through patience. Its word for anger is the af that closes the proverb of the soft answer, so the patient man of one saying holds back the anger the harsh word raises in the other.
The Proverb in 1 Samuel 25
Four turns of the chapter, from Nabal's refusal to David's blessing, fall under the proverb's two lines.
First Samuel 25 tells the second line of Proverbs 15:1 first, the harsh word and the anger it stirs, and then the first line, the gentle answer that turns the anger away.
| Turn of the chapter | Verses | Its words in the Berean text |
|---|---|---|
| The second line of Proverbs 15:1, a harsh word stirs up anger | ||
| Nabal refuses the request | 1 Samuel 25:10 to 11 | Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? |
| David's order to strap on swords | 1 Samuel 25:13 | Strap on your swords! |
| The first line of Proverbs 15:1, a gentle answer turns away wrath | ||
| Abigail's answer | 1 Samuel 25:23 to 31 | My lord, may the blame be on me alone |
| David's wrath turned | 1 Samuel 25:32 to 35 | Go home in peace |
Abigail's Answer to David
Abigail met David in a mountain ravine and spoke eight verses before he answered her.
One of Nabal's servants told Abigail that her husband was "such a scoundrel that nobody can speak to him", and she went to David instead.
Now David had just finished saying, “In vain I have protected all that belonged to this man in the wilderness. Nothing that belongs to him has gone missing, yet he has paid me back evil for good. May God punish David, and ever so severely, if I let one of Nabal’s men survive until morning.”David's words on the road show how far Nabal's reply had moved him, from guarding Nabal's flocks to an oath against every one of his men.
Her answer runs from verse 24 to verse 31, and it does four things before David says a word.
She fell at his feet and said, “My lord, may the blame be on me alone, but please let your servant speak to you; hear the words of your servant.She asks that the guilt fall on her first, so David's anger meets a person who has done him no wrong.
In verse 25 she calls Nabal a scoundrel who lives up to his name, and she says that she never saw the young men David had sent.
Now, my lord, as surely as the LORD lives and you yourself live, the LORD has held you back from coming to bloodshed and avenging yourself with your own hand. May your enemies and those who seek harm for my lord be like Nabal.She names what David was riding out to do and credits the LORD with holding him back from it, before he has turned back at all.
In verse 28 she asks him to forgive her offense, for "the LORD will surely make a lasting dynasty for my lord", and she gives as the reason that he fights the LORD's battles.
When the LORD has done for my lord all the good He promised, and when He has appointed you ruler over Israel, then my lord will have no remorse or guilt of conscience over needless bloodshed and revenge. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, may you remember your maidservant.”She sets his anger beside his future as ruler over Israel, so that he weighs one morning's revenge against a lifetime of conscience.
Then David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me this day! Blessed is your discernment, and blessed are you, because today you kept me from bloodshed and from avenging myself by my own hand.David reads the meeting as the LORD's doing, the restraint Abigail had named in verse 26.
He accepted what she had brought and told her that he had heeded her voice.
The meekness in the chapter belongs to the hearer as well as the speaker. David took correction from the wife of the man who had insulted him.
He who listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise.The verse names David's part on the road, the listening that let Abigail's answer do its work.
The chapter's other questions, among them the bundle of the living in verse 29, Nabal's death ten days later and Abigail's marriage to David, are taught on the study of Abigail.
A gift that eased angerMatthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 1 Samuel 25:18
“Nabal grudged them water, but she took two bottles ( casks or rundlets ) of wine, loaded her asses with these provisions, and sent them before; for a gift pacifieth anger, Prov. xxi. Jacob thus pacified Esau. When the instruments of the churl are evil, the liberal devises liberal things, and loses nothing by it; for by liberal things shall he stand, Isa. xxxii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on 1 Samuel 25:18Puritan
1 Samuel 25:26, 1 Samuel 25:30 to 31, 1 Samuel 25:32 to 33, Proverbs 15:31
A Gentle Answer Still Tells the Truth
A soft answer in Scripture can name a fault, correct an opponent and wait for the right moment.
The gentle answer is often taken as giving way to the angry person. Scripture's other teaching on gentle speech joins gentleness to thought before speaking and to correction.
The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked blurts out evil.The proverb sets the thought behind an answer against speech that comes out unweighed, the difference between Abigail and Nabal.
And a servant of the Lord must not be quarrelsome, but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, and forbearing. He must gently reprove those who oppose him, in the hope that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.Paul joins gentleness to correction in his charge to a teacher of the church, with repentance as the hope.
Abigail also chose her time. When she came home Nabal was holding a feast and was very drunk, and she told him nothing until morning light, when he was sober (1 Samuel 25:36 to 37).
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.Proverbs prizes the right word at the right moment, the timing Abigail kept with both men.
Slow to Anger
Four more sayings of Proverbs set the hot temper against the slow one, and James gives the same rule to the church.
The two lines of the proverb are about words, and the sayings around them are about the temper the words come from.
A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger calms dispute.The same chapter returns to the contrast of its first verse and places it in the speaker's temper.
A fool vents all his anger, but a wise man holds it back.Venting anger is the fool's way, so the restraint of the wise comes before any answer is given.
An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered man abounds in transgression.The angry man spreads dissension through a whole company, the harsh word's effect multiplied.
He who is slow to anger is better than a warrior, and he who controls his temper is greater than one who captures a city.The verse answers anyone who takes the gentle answer for weakness, for it ranks self-command above a soldier's strength.
James gave the same teaching to the church and added a reason the proverbs leave unstated.
My beloved brothers, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteousness that God desires.James joins quick listening, slow speech and slow anger, and grounds all three in what God desires.
Meekness gathers these sayings together. The meek person has learned to be slow to anger, and so he can give the gentle answer when another person's anger comes against him. The tongue in Proverbs and in James 3 is taught on The Tongue, and Jesus' teaching that anger is murder in the heart is taught on Anger and Murder of the Heart.
Proverbs 29:22, Proverbs 16:32, James 1:19 to 20
How the Proverb Has Been Read and Lived
Commentators explained why the gentle answer works, and later Christians recorded it given to anger in a home and before a mob.
died 430 · Augustine of Hippo
An answer kept for the calm moment
The reading2 paragraphs
Augustine of Hippo, in the ninth book of the Confessions, remembered how his mother Monica answered his father Patricius, who "as he was earnest in friendship, so was he violent in anger". He wrote that "she had learned that an angry husband should not be resisted, neither in deed, nor even in word". Once his father was calm again she would explain herself, "should he have been excited without cause".
He also records that other wives "carried the marks of blows on their dishonoured faces", and his account is a son's memory of his own home. It shows the timing of a soft answer, and anyone in danger of harm at home should seek safety and help.
1697 to 1771 · John Gill
The work of mild words on an angry man
The reading1 paragraph
John Gill, in his Exposition of the Old Testament (1748 to 1763), describes the gentle answer as "Mild words, gentle expressions, delivered with kindness and tenderness, humility and submission". He likens their work on an angry man to the weather, in which "high winds are sometimes laid by soft showers".
1703 to 1791 · John Wesley
A mob quieted at Wednesbury
The reading2 paragraphs
John Wesley's Journal for Thursday 20 October 1743 records a mob at Wednesbury that surrounded the house where he was. Its cry was "Bring out the minister; we will have the minister". He asked for their captain to be brought inside and wrote, "After a few sentences interchanged between us, the lion became a lamb". Two more of the angriest men were brought in, "ready to swallow the ground with rage", and he records that within two minutes they were as calm as their captain.
He then went out among the crowd and called for a chair. Standing up, he asked what any of them wanted with him. By his account the crowd ended by crying that he was an honest gentleman and that they would spill their blood in his defense.
1762 to 1832 · Adam Clarke
Why a harsh word multiplies
The reading1 paragraph
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1832) explains why the second line holds. He writes that "one angry word will always beget another, for the disposition of one spirit always begets its own likeness in another", and he calls the proverb one that "Universal experience confirms".
John Wesley, Adam Clarke
The Answer That Ends a Quarrel
The proverb places the end of a quarrel with the one who answers, whoever began it. Paul asks every believer to speak with the same grace.
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.Paul's command that speech be gracious looks to the moment of answering, the moment Proverbs 15:1 describes.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The tagged Hebrew text of the Old Testament, with Strong's numbers, morphology and glosses (STEP Bible, Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0)
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on 1 Samuel 25:18.
- John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748 to 1763), on Proverbs 15:1.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Proverbs 15:1.
- Augustine, Confessions, book 9, chapter 9, translated by J. G. Pilkington, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, volume 1 (1887)
- John Wesley, Journal, Thursday 20 October 1743, A Mob at Wednesbury.
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