Proverbs29chapter 29

"He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed." The picture is a draft animal stiffening against the yoke. A stubborn ox that will not turn with the pull is worse than useless in a field, and "stiff-necked" was already Israel's standard word for itself under Moses.

"The king by judgment establisheth the land: but he that receiveth gifts overthroweth it." An ancient king's first job was justice — hearing appeals, protecting widows and orphans, and keeping the courts clean. Royal inscriptions across the region boast about exactly this. The proverb makes it the test of whether a throne survives.

"A servant will not be corrected by words: for though he understand he will not answer." This is a hard saying and it reflects a hard institution. Household servants and debt slaves were legally dependants, and the proverb is describing how such a man survives — hearing everything, answering nothing.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." The word is the technical one for prophetic revelation, and the second half of the verse defines it: "but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." This is about a nation with no word from God and therefore no restraint — the exact condition described in the days of the judges, when there was no open vision and every man did what was right in his own eyes.