Verse Lens · Context pointer
Proverbs 17:7 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 7. 7Excellent speech becometh not a fool: much less do lying lips a prince.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
This verse opens with “Excellent speech becometh not a fool” and develops the line through “much less do lying lips a prince”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 17:5–8
Read Proverbs 17:7 with 17:5–8. Read alone, “Excellent speech becometh not a fool: much less do lying lips a…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: opens with “Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker” and develops the line through “and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished”; by 17:8, it opens with “A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that…” and develops the line through “whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth”. Together the unit concentrates on wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, humility, teachability, pride, and reputation within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
Why It Needs Context
The line's necessary work is contextual: it opens with “Excellent speech becometh not a fool” and develops the line through “much less do lying lips a prince”. The surrounding unit supplies the comparison, affected people, and outcome required for interpretation.
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 17:5–8 — Wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power — Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: and he that…Sources used for this context pointer
How certain is this explanation? probable
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 17:5–8, 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 17:5-17:8
Open source ↗