Bible Strands
Proverbs 15:4
A soothing tongue is a tree of life, but a perverse tongue crushes the spirit.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — A wisdom teacher addresses the student within a collection of antithetical proverbs, bracketed by God's all-seeing observation (v. 3) and the contrast between the fool and the prudent (v. 5).
The words — מַרְפֵּא (marpe') is "healing" as a noun, here qualifying the tongue as a healing one; סֶלֶף (seleph), "perverseness," is a hapax legomenon in the Hebrew Bible, appearing only here.
The thread — Proverbs 12:18 and 16:24 pair the tongue's piercing or healing effect on the body; Proverbs 18:8 extends the image to gossip sinking into the inmost being.
Why it lands — The verse places the reader's own speech in one of two categories: it either sustains or it breaks, and the criterion is not volume or intent but whether the words heal or pervert.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 16:24 Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
- Proverbs 12:18 Speaking rashly is like a piercing sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
- Proverbs 18:8 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels that go down into the inmost being.
- Proverbs 3:18 She is a tree of life to those who embrace her, and those who lay hold of her are blessed.
- Malachi 4:2 “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and leap like calves from the stall.
- Proverbs 18:14 The spirit of a man can endure his sickness, but who can survive a broken spirit?
- Revelation 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to eat from the tree of life in the Paradise of God.
- Psalms 52:2 Your tongue devises destruction like a sharpened razor, O worker of deceit.
- Psalms 109:22 For I am poor and needy; my heart is wounded within me.
- Proverbs 26:22 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels that go down into the inmost being.