If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat,
and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink,
for you will heap burning coals on his head,
and the Lord will reward you.
The north wind brings forth rain,
and a backbiting tongue, angry looks.
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop
than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.
Like cold water to a thirsty soul,
so is good news from a far country.
Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain
is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.Proverbs 25:21-26
There is nothing finer in relation to New Testament ethics in the whole of the Old Testament than the thought expressed in 21 and 22, 'Coals of fire' represent, as Kidner puts it, 'the pangs which are far better felt now as shame than later as punishment'. And, of course, the effect of disinterested love is so often to make people ashamed of themselves; and if it burns deeply enough, it will lead to repentance. The AV and RSV renderings of 23 are opposite to one another, but paradoxically the meaning is much the same in both cases. If we follow the AV, the meaning would be that an angry countenance drives away a backbiting tongue in the sense that the backbiting arouses righteous indignation. When the fire of divine anger glints in a holy man's eyes it is enough to make any backbiting tongue stop wagging, and turn away its owner in discomfiture. If we follow the RSV, the meaning would be that a backbiting tongue brings forth angry looks - again the idea of righteous indignation is present as in AV, 24 repeats an earlier verse, 21:9, which gives the choice between ignominious solitude or intolerable society (Kidner). A wonderful gospel message can be preached from 25, and one inevitably thinks of Jesus' encounter with the woman of Samaria; as He spoke to that thirsty soul about living water from a far country. The message in 26 is about the danger and evil of compromise. A good and righteous man has a reputation, people look up to him: his fall therefore imperils the many who have learned to rely on him and look up to him. The more there are who drink at that fountain, the more will be infected and harmed when it becomes troubled and corrupt. What a spur this should be to those in the public eye to remember that no man lives unto himself.