Proverbs 20:15 Explained in Context

Read It With

• Proverbs 20:14–17

Read Proverbs 20:15 with 20:14–17. Read alone, “There is gold, and a multitude of rubies: but the lips of…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: uses contrastive parallelism to place “It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer” against “when he is gone his way, then he boasteth”; by 20:17, it uses contrastive parallelism to place “Bread of deceit is sweet to a man” against “afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel”. Together the unit concentrates on wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, speech, listening, truth, and relational consequence, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”

Why This Verse Appears Here

Proverbs 20:14–17 forms a reviewed local cluster inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” Its lines concentrate on wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, speech, listening, truth, and relational consequence, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, 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 “There is gold, and a multitude of rubies” against “the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel”.