In all toil there is profit,
but mere talk tends only to poverty.
The crown of the wise is their wealth,
but the folly of fools brings folly.
A truthful witness saves lives,
but one who breathes out lies is deceitful.
In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence,
and his children will have a refuge.
The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,
that one may turn away from the snares of death.Proverbs 14:23-27
The sentiment expressed in 23 is very relevant for today when one of the great needs of society is to recover the idea of the worth of labour, to get away from thinking of work simply as a means to an end, a means of making money. A man who has no other interest in his job save in what it brings him in his pay-packet is a man who is basically obscene, in the true sense of that word. The biblical doctrine of work is that it is honourable; it is instituted by God in the order of creation in such a way that true fulfilment can be found in work honourably and well done. It does something to us in terms of producing integrity in us, and this is true with even the most humdrum of jobs. There is a similar kind of thought in 24 where the point is not so much that wise people are generally those who get on best in the world in a material sense - for this is not always true as that the wise are always rich, however little they may have. The word 'crown' as we have seen in an earlier Note, is not used in Scripture ornamentally, but always as a sign of authority and power. Wisdom does something to people: it bestows authority on them; and this is their true wealth. Kidner has an interesting and valuable comment on 25, 'The special Christian overtones of the first line in AV do not really belong to it: the context (unlike that of 11:30) is the law court, and 'souls' are 'people' or 'lives’'. The meaning, then, is that a true witness, by bearing true testimony in court, is the means of justice being done. The theme in 26 and 27 is godliness (' the fear of the Lord'). It is on the one hand a source of assurance safety and protection (26), on the other a source of vitality (21). 'His children' in 26b refer to the family of the godly man, and this contains a truly wonderful promise that godliness of life will extend its influence to future generations. Why then should we be so fearful for our children?