Solomon spends this whole chapter warning against things that look good and turn out ruinous — a ruler’s table, a rich man’s food, a stolen field, a cup of wine — before landing on the one request in the chapter that is exactly as good as it looks.
A study in Proverbs 23 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 16 min read
When Thou Sittest To Eat With A Ruler
“When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: and put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.”
Proverbs 23:1-3
“Deceitful meat” is an odd label for food that presumably tastes fine — the deception is not in the dish itself but in what accepting it quietly obligates a guest to, favor and flattery dressed up as simple hospitality.
Riches Certainly Make Themselves Wings
“Labour not to be rich: cease from thine own wisdom. Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.”
Proverbs 23:4-5
“‘Labor not to be rich…Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.’”
Ellen G. White · Education, p. 140
White sets this warning against grasping for wealth right beside the counsel to give freely and to bring a faithful tithe — wings that fly a fortune away answered, on the very same page, by windows of heaven opened over whatever is given away first.
“Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats: for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.”
Proverbs 23:6-7
“As he thinketh in his heart, so is he” is one of this book’s most direct statements of what a person actually is — not his hospitable words, not his generous-sounding invitation, but the calculation running underneath them, unseen and decisive.
“The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words. Speak not in the ears of a fool: for he will despise the wisdom of thy words.”
Proverbs 23:8-9
“Lose thy sweet words” makes flattering speech spent on the wrong host a total waste, not merely an embarrassment — effort and kindness given away with nothing at all recovered in return, alongside the meal itself.
Remove Not The Old Landmark
“Remove not the old landmark; and enter not into the fields of the fatherless: for their redeemer is mighty; he shall plead their cause with thee.”
Proverbs 23:10-11
This is the fourth time this series has met the very same financial-ethics chain White strung together in Education — already quoted in the Proverbs 13, Proverbs 21, and Proverbs 22 studies — this verse sitting right in the middle of that same single-page list.
“Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.”
Proverbs 23:12
Both heart and ears are given the same instruction here, applied rather than merely present — hearing alone is treated as insufficient, the heart required to do its own separate, active work alongside it.
Withhold Not Correction From The Child
“Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.”
Proverbs 23:13-14
“He shall not die” answers a fear the verse assumes a parent already has — correction is not urged as though it were painless, only as though its cost is survivable, and its absence is not.
“My son, if thine heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine. Yea, my reins shall rejoice, when thy lips speak right things.”
Proverbs 23:15-16
“Even mine” adds a small, personal emphasis to a father’s joy — not joy in the abstract at wisdom succeeding somewhere in the world, but this particular father’s own heart, specifically, rejoicing over this particular son.
Be Not Among Winebibbers
“Let not thine heart envy sinners: but be thou in the fear of the LORD all the day long. For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.”
Proverbs 23:17-18
“All the day long” is the antidote this verse offers to a heart tempted by envy — not a single act of resistance, but a fear of the LORD sustained continuously, filling exactly the hours envy would otherwise have room to work in.
“Hear thou, my son, and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.”
Proverbs 23:19-21
“Guide thine heart in the way” puts the son himself at the wheel rather than simply the recipient of instruction — not a heart dragged along by a father’s rules, but one being taught here to actually steer.
My Son, Give Me Thine Heart
“Hearken unto thy father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old. Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.”
Proverbs 23:22-23
“Buy the truth, and sell it not” treats truth as a possession worth real cost to obtain and never worth any price to give up — a purchase encouraged in one direction only, with no matching verse anywhere in this book advising the reverse trade.
“The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Thy father and thy mother shall be glad, and she that bare thee shall rejoice.”
Proverbs 23:24-25
The chapter pauses here to let both parents feel, in advance, the exact reward this whole section has been building toward — joy promised not as an abstract principle but as something a specific father and a specific mother will actually get to feel.
“My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.”
Proverbs 23:26-27
“Then, children, come to Jesus. Give to God the most precious offering that it is possible for you to make; give Him your heart. He speaks to you saying, ‘My son, my daughter, give me thine heart.’ Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow; for I will cleanse you with my own blood.”
Ellen G. White · The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 3, p. 1162
White takes Solomon’s own request for his son’s heart and puts it directly in Christ’s mouth, addressed to every child who reads it — the same request, the same word, only the speaker changed from an aging father to the Saviour offering His own blood in exchange for it.
“She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.”
Proverbs 23:28
“Increaseth the transgressors” names a compounding effect rather than a single, contained sin — each man caught in this particular trap does not simply fall alone, he becomes one more addition to a number that keeps growing.
They Have Stricken Me, Shalt Thou Say
“Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.”
Proverbs 23:29-30
“Is not this description true to life? Does it not represent to us the experience of the poor, besotted drunkard, who is plunged in degradation and ruin because he has put the bottle to his lips, and who says, ‘I will seek it yet again’? The curse has come upon such a soul through indulgence in evil, and Satan has control of his being.”
Ellen G. White · The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 3, p. 1162
White wrote this comment on the same page as the “give me thine heart” passage just above it — the chapter’s tenderest invitation and its bleakest warning sitting one paragraph apart in her own commentary, exactly as they sit one paragraph apart in Solomon’s.
“Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.”
Proverbs 23:31-32
“At the last” is the whole warning compressed into two words — everything about the wine described just before this is genuinely attractive, and the verse never denies it, only insists on waiting to see how the story actually ends.
“Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things. Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.”
Proverbs 23:33-34
“The top of a mast” is about as precarious and disoriented a place as anyone could lie down — the drunkard pictured not merely unsteady on solid ground, but somehow asleep in the one spot on the whole ship where falling is nearly guaranteed.
“They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.”
Proverbs 23:35
The chapter’s very last line is the drunkard’s own voice, and it is chilling precisely because nothing in it sounds like regret — real injuries genuinely unfelt, and the only question he asks himself is when he can go back for more.
