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Proverbs 27:17–19, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Proverbs 27:17–19
Friendship, neighbor-love, loyalty, and boundaries — Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance…
People form one another's faces the way iron forms iron
Iron sharpens iron; so a person sharpens the countenance of a friend. Whoever keeps the fig tree will eat its fruit; so the one who waits on a master will be honored. As in water face answers face, so the heart of a person to a person.
Sharpening is friction that makes a tool useful. Friends who only polish you dull you. Countenance is the face you bring to the world: alertness, edge, honesty. Fig tree and master are the old work pictures: tending what you are responsible for yields fruit and due honor, not a theology of groveling, and not a reason to stay with a master who devours servants.
Water returns a face; a heart is known in another heart
Face in water is recognition: you meet yourself in the other. Heart to heart is mutual disclosure, not fusion and not a demand that everyone be your mirror. The cluster holds friendship, faithful work, and honest seeing together.
Honored for waiting on a master is the proverb's workplace pattern. It does not baptize exploitation. Fruit from a kept tree is ordinary justice in labor, still not a prosperity formula.
How this should shape us
Choose friends who will sharpen you, not only soothe you. Tend the work you are actually responsible for. Look at what your heart is doing to other hearts, and what theirs is doing to yours.
Teach it back
Explain Proverbs 27:17–19 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.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful readers disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters disagree over how much literary meaning adjacent sentence sayings gain from small clusters. This package treats Proverbs 27:17–19 as a useful local cluster while preserving each saying's independent force and marking the boundary as revisable.
How certain? probableResearch 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 27:17–19, 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 27:17-27:19
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1168-1171, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 27:17–19
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 27:17–19 and the Solomonic sayings copied by Hezekiah's men 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 27:17–19
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 27:17–19, 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 27:17-27:19
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. 1168-1171, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 27:17–19
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 27:17–19 and the Solomonic sayings copied by Hezekiah's men 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 27:17–19
Open source ↗