Read the passage and its setting
Proverbs 18:13–16, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Proverbs 18:13–16
Wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception — He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is…
The Main Point
contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
What Is Happening Here?
Proverbs 18:13–16 opens with “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him” and closes with “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.” Those endpoints show the unit's movement from opening claim to reviewed close.
Context That Shapes This Passage
How does this passage relate?
Proverbs 18:13–16In “Wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception — He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is…,” the complete unit develops this passage-specific claim: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
Why this relationship fits: The reviewed reasoning path begins, “Opening (18:13): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”.” and concludes, “Close (18:16): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”, creating the next supported pause.”
How does this passage relate?
Proverbs 18:13–16Proverbs 18:13–16 is the reviewed unit “Wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception — He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is….” Its parallel lines, repeated address, comparison, or local cluster controls how each verse contributes without borrowing a neighboring unit's subject.
Why this relationship fits: The unit opens “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him” and closes “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.”
Where does this sit in the whole book?
Proverbs as a wholeProverbs 18:13–16 belongs to “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” Compact parallel sayings train judgment about speech, work, wealth, poverty, family, friendship, anger, justice, rulers, planning, and worship. Most describe normal moral patterns rather than guaranteed outcomes. This unit contributes wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power through its own received wording and form.
Why this relationship fits: The received sequence places Proverbs 18:13–16 inside Proverbs 10:1–22:16; this unit opens “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him” and closes “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.” The unit's reviewed main point is: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
Follow the Wisdom Collection
See why this section appears here and how the author's wisdom movement leads to its meaning.
Why Is This Passage Here?
Proverbs 18:13–16 forms a reviewed local cluster inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” Its lines concentrate on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, while each sentence proverb retains its own force and the neighboring database unit does not supply its meaning.
Follow the Saying or Discourse
Opening (18:13): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”.
Development (18:13–16): adjacent lines test wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
Close (18:16): the unit contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”, creating the next supported pause.
Why This Interpretation Fits
Exact verse-level work
Every line in Proverbs 18:13–16 retains its own Verse Lens role and does not borrow a neighboring verse's claim.
Collection context
The superscription and placement identify this unit inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection”: Compact parallel sayings train judgment about speech, work, wealth, poverty, family, friendship, anger, justice, rulers, planning, and worship. Most describe normal moral patterns rather than guaranteed outcomes.
Proverbial proportion
The unit's instruction and observations concern wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power; they describe moral direction without explaining every exceptional outcome.
Understand the Meaning and Its Boundaries
Clarify the words that matter and keep the conclusion no broader than the passage allows.
What the Passage Is Not Saying
Reading Proverbs 18:13–16 as edited wisdom rather than a detached formula rules out these uses:
The saying does not make a proverb a universal guarantee, label people permanently, reward contempt, or replace careful attention to exceptional cases.
The saying does not blame depression, trauma, grief, disability, or slow recovery on weak faith, and it does not make cheerfulness a duty owed to other people.
The saying does not promise prosperity, blame sufferers or poor people, excuse predatory lending, or make wealth proof of divine approval.
The unit does not turn a normal wisdom pattern into a universal promise, a complete causal explanation of suffering, or a mandate broader than Proverbs 18:13–16.
Context check: Within first solomonic sentence-saying collection, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
What Remains True Today
Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. Proverbs treats joy, grief, fear, envy, courage, and inward endurance as real parts of embodied life without making emotion a simple measure of virtue. Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
Respond and Remember
Let the meaning shape life carefully, then practice explaining the section in context.
How This Should Shape Us
Why these applications follow
Proverbs 18:13–16 applies wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power through the people, action, comparison, and consequence named in its complete movement.
Within first solomonic sentence-saying collection, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. Proverbs treats joy, grief, fear, envy, courage, and inward endurance as real parts of embodied life without making emotion a simple measure of virtue. Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
How does the application follow proportionately?
For a difficult choice, seek correction, compare the likely effects of competing paths, and choose the option that protects truth, justice, and teachability. Name the emotion and its conditions honestly, avoid moralizing another person's distress, and seek relational, practical, pastoral, or clinical support proportionate to the need. Examine how money was obtained, who bears the cost, whether basic needs are met, and how resources can serve justice and durable care. In 18:13–16, let the concrete wording “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it…” keep that response tied to the people, action, comparison, or consequence actually named.
Teach It Back
Explain Proverbs 18:13–16 in your own words. Identify its form and collection, trace one line from role through contextual meaning and enduring truth to application, name one uncertainty, and reject one misuse explicitly.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Go Deeper
The main explanation above stands on its own. Open these optional sections for fuller language, history, disagreements, and source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Exact verse-level work
Every line in Proverbs 18:13–16 retains its own Verse Lens role and does not borrow a neighboring verse's claim.
Collection context
The superscription and placement identify this unit inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection”: Compact parallel sayings train judgment about speech, work, wealth, poverty, family, friendship, anger, justice, rulers, planning, and worship. Most describe normal moral patterns rather than guaranteed outcomes.
Proverbial proportion
The unit's instruction and observations concern wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power; they describe moral direction without explaining every exceptional outcome.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
No individual Hebrew or KJV expression in Proverbs 18:13–16 needs a separate lexical card beyond the complete saying or discourse explanation.
What the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
Edited wisdom and social setting
This unit belongs to first solomonic sentence-saying collection. Aitken's printed pages 405-422 and the book-specific sources identify family, community, agricultural, commercial, scribal, court, and royal settings as relevant possibilities without proving one setting for every saying.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
No older-English term in this unit requires a separate reader note after reading the complete KJV line in context.
Earlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Israelite wisdom setting
The unit's first horizon is Israel's wisdom collection under fear of the LORD. Torah-shaped justice, creation, household teaching, royal responsibility, and community life may inform the language, but no cross-reference overrides this unit's own parallelism and collection role.
How certain? probableHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Responsible canonical location
Within the received book, Compact parallel sayings train judgment about speech, work, wealth, poverty, family, friendship, anger, justice, rulers, planning, and worship. Most describe normal moral patterns rather than guaranteed outcomes. This local unit is read through that movement before broader canonical comparison.
How certain? probableTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
No reviewed textual variant changes Proverbs 18:13–16's central wisdom movement; the exact Hebrew and NET notes were still checked against the pinned KJV.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
No major competing interpretation changes Proverbs 18:13–16's central wisdom movement; pattern, exception, and collection limits still remain visible.
Theology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
The unit places practical wisdom under a moral order answerable to the LORD: Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. Proverbs treats joy, grief, fear, envy, courage, and inward endurance as real parts of embodied life without making emotion a simple measure of virtue. Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
Within First Solomonic sentence-saying collection, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
The saying does not make a proverb a universal guarantee, label people permanently, reward contempt, or replace careful attention to exceptional cases.
A compact saying is easy to detach and universalize.
Within first solomonic sentence-saying collection, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. Proverbs treats joy, grief, fear, envy, courage, and inward endurance as real parts of embodied life without making emotion a simple measure of virtue. Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
The context-supported contribution remains: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
The saying does not blame depression, trauma, grief, disability, or slow recovery on weak faith, and it does not make cheerfulness a duty owed to other people.
An ancient authority, household, wealth, gender, or consequence image can be imported into modern power without following the interpretation chain.
Within first solomonic sentence-saying collection, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. Proverbs treats joy, grief, fear, envy, courage, and inward endurance as real parts of embodied life without making emotion a simple measure of virtue. Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
The context-supported contribution remains: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
The saying does not promise prosperity, blame sufferers or poor people, excuse predatory lending, or make wealth proof of divine approval.
An ancient authority, household, wealth, gender, or consequence image can be imported into modern power without following the interpretation chain.
Within first solomonic sentence-saying collection, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. Proverbs treats joy, grief, fear, envy, courage, and inward endurance as real parts of embodied life without making emotion a simple measure of virtue. Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
The context-supported contribution remains: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
The unit does not turn a normal wisdom pattern into a universal promise, a complete causal explanation of suffering, or a mandate broader than Proverbs 18:13–16.
An ancient authority, household, wealth, gender, or consequence image can be imported into modern power without following the interpretation chain.
Within first solomonic sentence-saying collection, contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” The sayings function as context-shaped instruction and observation: general patterns are not automatic guarantees, commands stay bounded by their ancient role, and an individual line must not erase the edited collection around it.
Wisdom is practiced moral perception: learning how words, desires, habits, relationships, and power ordinarily tend toward life or harm. Proverbs treats joy, grief, fear, envy, courage, and inward endurance as real parts of embodied life without making emotion a simple measure of virtue. Proverbs treats resources as morally consequential but never reduces wealth to virtue or poverty to personal failure. These truths remain proportionate only when the proverb's literary form, affected people, exceptions, and wider fear-of-the-LORD frame remain visible.
The context-supported contribution remains: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him”; by 18:16, it contributes the claim, image, or instruction “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men”. Together the unit concentrates on wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, emotion, resilience, grief, and inward life, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Proverbs 18:13–16, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 18:13-18:16
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1133-1136, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 18:13–16
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 18:13–16 and the First Solomonic sentence-saying collection outline
Supports: Abstract-level control for the dispute over individual-saying, small-cluster, and collection context; no uninspected detailed claim.
Weeks, ‘Context in the Sayings Collections,’ Early Israelite Wisdom (2000), official abstract and chapter pp. 20-40; methodological question applied to Proverbs 18:13–16
Supports: One historical-social account of poverty, wealth, interest, oppression, labor, and differing evaluations within the collection.
Wittenberg, ‘Situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth,’ Scriptura 21, pp. 1-23, especially the sayings and redactional comparison relevant to Proverbs 18:13–16
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
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 18:13–16, 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 18:13-18:16
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. 1133-1136, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 18:13–16
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Proverbs
K. T. Aitken
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Exact location: Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 18:13–16 and the First Solomonic sentence-saying collection outline
Open source ↗scholarly monograph chapter abstract and metadata
Context in the Sayings Collections
Stuart Weeks
Oxford University Press, in Early Israelite Wisdom, 2000
Supports: Abstract-level control for the dispute over individual-saying, small-cluster, and collection context; no uninspected detailed claim.
Exact location: Weeks, ‘Context in the Sayings Collections,’ Early Israelite Wisdom (2000), official abstract and chapter pp. 20-40; methodological question applied to Proverbs 18:13–16
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access journal article
The situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth in the Book of Proverbs
G. H. Wittenberg
Scriptura 21, 1987; open archive 2020
Supports: One historical-social account of poverty, wealth, interest, oppression, labor, and differing evaluations within the collection.
Exact location: Wittenberg, ‘Situational context of statements concerning poverty and wealth,’ Scriptura 21, pp. 1-23, especially the sayings and redactional comparison relevant to Proverbs 18:13–16
Open source ↗