An evildoer listens to wicked lips,
and a liar gives ear to a mischievous tongue.
Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker;
he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.
Grandchildren are the crown of the aged,
and the glory of children is their fathers.
Fine speech is not becoming to a fool;
still less is false speech to a prince.Proverbs 17:4-7
Wicked lips and the mischievous tongue on the one hand and evil doers and liars on the other go well together, and are well matched (4): and the match reminds us that sin has within it its own momentum; it is not static, but intensifies and gets worse all the time, moving from thought to word and from word to action, then to habit and character. For the thought expressed in 5, see Note on 14:31. In 5b, see, by contrast Moffatt's rendering of 1 Corinthians 13:6, 'Love is never glad when others go wrong'. But what are we to say, in this connection, of the imprecatory Psalms? Was not David glad at his enemies' calamities? The two things are not the same: here, it is the gloating over others' misfortunes, but in the Psalms it is rejoicing in divine righteousness - a very different thing. One commentator suggests that in 6 we have the picture of the ideal household, where government is administered according to God, and love rules all hearts. Not all homes, alas, are like this, nor are all families, but where the grace of God is regnant, they will become more and more like this. In such a situation, the aged will find their youth renewed in their grandchildren, and the young will revere their fathers. There is thus a 'two-way' traffic between the generations, instead of a gap. No thought here of children thinking their parents not 'with it' and old-fashioned, but rather fathers that sons are proud of, and children who are the crown of the aged. The meaning in both clauses is that the association in each case is incongruous. According to Kidner the word translated 'fine' has the suggestion of excess in it - 'talking big'. But this is just what a fool is likely to do, only his is a false claim. The idea is that a man should be what he professes. If you are a prince, you should live in a princely way. If Revelation 1:5, 6 is true of us, we should show it in our daily walk and demeanour.