CHAPTER 17

A Friend Loves at All Times

Chapter 17 covers a wide range — sibling and household conflict, the danger of gossip, medicine for the soul, bribery, and one of the most treasured lines in the book on friendship. Its unifying thread is relational: nearly every proverb here is about how people treat each other, especially under pressure or provocation.

1 ‘Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than a house full of feasting with strife’ — peace is again ranked above abundance (compare 15:16–17); the proverb assumes most people would trade comfort for calm if they honestly weighed the cost of constant conflict.

2 ‘A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren’ — competence and character are shown outranking mere birth status; earned trust can override inherited privilege.

3 ‘The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold; but Jehovah trieth the hearts’ — metal is purified by fire; the proverb claims hearts undergo the same kind of testing, examined by God for what is genuine underneath the surface.

4 ‘An evil-doer giveth heed to wicked lips; and a liar giveth ear to a mischievous tongue’ — what a person is willing to listen to reveals as much about their character as what they say themselves.

5 ‘Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker; and he that is glad at calamity shall not be unpunished’ — nearly identical in logic to 14:31; contempt for the vulnerable, or pleasure at someone else's disaster, is treated as an offense against God directly, not merely against the person harmed.

6 ‘Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers’ — honor is pictured flowing in both directions across generations — grandchildren honoring the elderly, parents honoring their children by the legacy passed down.

7 ‘Excellent speech becometh not a fool: much less do lying lips a prince’ — eloquence from someone foolish rings false, but dishonesty from someone in power is worse still — the higher the position, the greater the damage speech can do.

8 ‘A gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that hath it: whithersoever it turneth, it prospereth’ — a clear-eyed, almost cynical observation about how bribery actually functions in practice, describing the phenomenon rather than endorsing it (the book condemns bribes explicitly elsewhere, e.g., 17:23).

9 ‘He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that harpeth on a matter separateth chief friends’ — letting an offense go, rather than repeatedly bringing it up, is named as the very thing that preserves close relationships.

10 ‘A rebuke entereth deeper into one that hath understanding than a hundred stripes into a fool’ — receptiveness determines effectiveness; a single word reaches the teachable person further than repeated punishment reaches the one who refuses to listen.

11 ‘An evil man seeketh only rebellion; therefore a cruel messenger shall be sent against him’ — rebellion is shown inviting its own harsh response, consequence matched in kind to the character that provoked it.

12 ‘Let a bear robbed of her cubs meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly’ — a vivid, almost humorous comparison: a fool in the middle of his foolishness is judged more dangerous to encounter than one of the fiercest animals imaginable.

13 ‘Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house’ — repaying kindness with harm is treated as inviting a lasting curse on one's own household, not just a single bad outcome.

14 ‘The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water: therefore leave off contention, before there is quarrelling’ — conflict is compared to a breached dam — easy to stop at the very first crack, nearly impossible once it's flowing.

15 ‘He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to Jehovah’ — corrupting judgment in either direction — excusing guilt or condemning innocence — is treated as equally offensive to God.

16 ‘Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to buy wisdom, seeing he hath no understanding?’ — a pointed question: wisdom can't simply be purchased by someone unwilling to actually change; means without desire accomplishes nothing.

17 ‘A friend loveth at all times; and a brother is born for adversity’ — one of the most beloved verses on friendship in Scripture, distinguishing between love that is constant regardless of circumstance and the specific loyalty tested and proven in hardship.

18 ‘A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his neighbor’ — the warning against reckless financial guarantees (compare 6:1–5; 11:15) returns once more, treated as a recurring, common trap worth repeating.

19 ‘He loveth transgression that loveth strife; and he that raiseth high his gate seeketh destruction’ — both a taste for conflict and ostentatious pride (a needlessly grand gate) are named as forms of the same underlying self-destructive impulse.

20 ‘He that hath a wayward heart findeth no good; and he that hath a perverse tongue falleth into mischief’ — heart and tongue are again paired; neither internal corruption nor its outward expression in speech goes unpunished.

21 ‘He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow; and the father of a fool hath no joy’ — an honest, unsentimental acknowledgment of the real grief a parent can carry over a child's persistent folly — the book doesn't pretend such pain isn't real.

22 ‘A merry heart is a good medicine; but a broken spirit drieth up the bones’ — emotional state is described in explicitly medicinal terms — joy functioning almost like treatment, despair like an illness working its way through the body.

23 ‘A wicked man taketh a bribe out of the bosom, to pervert the ways of justice’ — unlike verse 8's neutral observation, this verse names the act directly: taking a bribe to twist judgment is corruption, full stop.

24 ‘Wisdom is before the face of him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth’ — the wise keep their attention on what's actually in front of them, while the fool's focus scatters toward whatever is distant, distracting, or irrelevant.

25 ‘A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him’ — nearly identical in sentiment to verse 21 and 10:1, the repetition throughout the book reflects how seriously Proverbs treats a child's character as a shared family burden or joy.

26 ‘Also to punish the righteous is not good, nor to smite the noble for their uprightness’ — justice misapplied against integrity itself is named as a distinct category of wrong, worth condemning on its own.

27 ‘He that spareth his words hath knowledge; and he that is of a cool spirit is a man of understanding’ — restraint in both speech and temper is credited as visible evidence of genuine understanding, not merely a personality trait.

28 ‘Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding’ — the chapter's closing line is almost wry: silence alone, without any actual wisdom behind it, can still buy the appearance of it — a warning as much as a compliment.