Verse Lens · Concise explanation

Proverbs 15:18 Explained in Context

Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.

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Verse 18. A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.

King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions

Quick Meaning

This verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “A wrathful man stirreth up strife” against “he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife”.

Little with the fear of the LORD beats treasure with trouble; herbs with love beat a stalled ox with hate

This verse is one part of that explanation in Proverbs 15:16–19. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.

Read It With

  • Proverbs 15:16–19

Read Proverbs 15:18 with 15:16–19. Read alone, “A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith”; by 15:19, it uses contrastive parallelism to place “The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns” against “the way of the righteous is made plain”. Together the unit concentrates on reverent accountability before the LORD, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, observational wisdom drawn from creatures and ordinary life within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”

Why This Verse Appears Here

Proverbs 15:16–19 forms a reviewed local cluster inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” Its lines concentrate on reverent accountability before the LORD, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, observational wisdom drawn from creatures and ordinary life, while each sentence proverb retains its own force and the neighboring database unit does not supply its meaning. Within that relationship, this verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “A wrathful man stirreth up strife” against “he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife”.

What Remains True

Violence and uncontrolled conflict destroy trust, endanger bodies, and often rebound upon those who organize them. In Proverbs 15:18, that bounded truth is expressed through “A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger…,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.

How It Can Shape Life

  • Prioritize immediate safety, de-escalation where possible, accountable intervention, evidence preservation, and competent help. Proverbs 15:18 names that responsibility through “A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger…,” so the response must remain accountable to the person, action, comparison, or consequence in this line.

Continue in Context

Read the complete section for the connected explanation and how it should shape life. This verse is a doorway into that passage, not a saying that stands alone.

Read Proverbs 15:16–19 — Reverent accountability before the LORD — Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great…
Sources used for this Verse Lens

How certain is this explanation? strong

These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.

Biblical text

King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006

eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society

USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.

Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.

Exact location: Proverbs 15:16–19, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus

Open source ↗

hebrew text and morphology

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Proverbs

Open Scriptures

Open Scriptures, release 2.2

Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.

Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 15:16-15:19

Open source ↗

translation and translator notes

NET Bible: Proverbs with translators' notes

Biblical Studies Press

Biblical Studies Press, 2006

Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.

Exact location: NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1121-1125, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 15:16–19

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