The wisest of women builds her house,
but folly with her own hands tears it down.
Whoever walks in uprightness fears the Lord,
but he who is devious in his ways despises him.
By the mouth of a fool comes a rod for his back,
but the lips of the wise will preserve them.Proverbs 14:1-3
The RSV is scarcely warranted in omitting the word 'woman' in 1, as it certainly occurs in the text; by doing so, the thrust of the verse is missed. Literally it reads 'wisdom of women'. Kidner suggests 'Womanly wisdom buildeth...' What is referred to is the quality on which a true home depends. Once again we see the remarkably prominent emphasis on the place given to the woman in establishing, not to say stabilising, a home. There is certainly no thought in Proverbs of the suppression of women kind, or of their being given an inferior place. In 2, it is life and conduct that prove whether one is really walking before God or not - not what a man says about his spiritual experience so much as what his spiritual experience says of him. The meaning of 3 is uncertain. Does it mean that the foolish talk of the fool will bring a rod upon his back for his pride? Or does it mean that the words of a fool are like the shoot springing up out of a seemingly dead tree-trunk, thereby giving indication of a hidden root - i.e. the fool's words give his real nature and character away? Both are true, but here perhaps the first alternative may be more likely, not only in the contrast afforded by 3b, but also in conjunction with 15:1. Once again, then, in these verses, wisdom and folly are set over against one another, with the logical and inevitable issue and outcome of each made utterly clear, to encourage us in a right choice between the two, and to render us without excuse if we fail to make it.