Proverbs 30:10 - Meaning and Application

Here is a warning not to mistreat other people’s servants any more than our own, or stir up trouble between servants and their masters. That is a harmful task, full of envy, and it makes a person hateful. “Do not slander a servant with your tongue” is the sense of the margin. It is a low and mean thing to secretly strike someone with the whip of the tongue, especially a servant who is not our equal and whom we should protect rather than provoke, if his master is harsh with him.

This may also hurt the one who speaks. If a servant is pushed too far, he may curse you, accuse you, and bring you into trouble. Or he may speak badly of you and damage your reputation. He may even appeal to God against you and call for God’s judgment, since God protects the innocent who are oppressed.

On this warning, Solomon turns to some wicked kinds of people that every good person should hate. There are those who abuse their parents, speaking harshly to them, wishing them harm, calling them names, and even injuring them. There is a whole generation of such people. Young men of this sort often gather together and stir one another up against their parents. People like that are like a generation of vipers. Those who curse their natural parents, or their rulers, or their ministers, because they cannot bear authority, show the same kind of evil. And those are close to them who may not yet curse their parents, but give them no blessing, no kind word, and no prayers.

There are also those who think well of themselves and, under a show of holiness, hide much sinful life, even from their own eyes (Proverbs 30:12). They are pure in their own eyes, as if they were exactly what they ought to be. They think highly of their own character, as if they were not only righteous, but also rich and secure, “increased with goods” (Revelation 3:17). Yet they are not cleaned from their filth, especially the filth of the heart. They may be polished on the outside, but they are not washed or made holy. They are like the Pharisees, who were full of uncleanness inside (Matthew 23:25-26).

There are also proud and scornful people who look down on everyone around them (Proverbs 30:13). The writer speaks with wonder at their terrible pride and arrogance. Their eyes are high. They treat their neighbors as if they were beneath notice, and expect everyone to keep a great distance. When they look at themselves, they strut and boast like peacocks, thinking they make themselves important, when they only make themselves foolish. Such people belong to a generation that God, who opposes the proud, will bring down with contempt.

Finally, there are those who are cruel to the poor and harsh to everyone under their power (Proverbs 30:14). Their teeth are like iron and steel, like swords and knives, tools of cruelty. They tear into the poor with great delight, as hungry people cut and swallow food. God has arranged things so that the poor will always be in the land, and will never disappear from among us. But some hate to help them so much that, if they could, they would wipe them out from the earth, especially God’s poor. Some take this to mean those who ruin others by lies, false charges, and harsh judgments about their eternal state. Their tongues, and even their teeth as tools of speech, are like swords and knives (Psalm 57:4).