Bible Strands
Proverbs 16:28
A perverse man spreads dissension, and a gossip divides close friends.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The author addresses readers of the wisdom collection, positioning this warning between the description of a worthless man’s scorching speech and a violent man’s corrupting influence.
The words — תַּ֭הְפֻּכוֹת (Tah.pu.khot) = perversities and אַלּֽוּף ('a.Luf) = close friend.
The thread — The pattern of speech-driven division appears in Proverbs 17:9, which contrasts concealing offenses with promoting love, and in Proverbs 15:18, which contrasts a hot-tempered man who stirs up strife with one who calms disputes. Proverbs 18:8 describes gossip as choice morsels that penetrate deeply.
Why it lands — The text defines gossip as an active mechanism that severs close relationships, requiring readers to examine their own speech habits to avoid causing unnecessary fracture.
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 froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 17:9 Whoever conceals an offense promotes love, but he who brings it up separates friends.
- Proverbs 15:18 A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger calms dispute.
- Proverbs 18:8 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels that go down into the inmost being.
- Romans 1:29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,
- James 3:14 But if you harbor bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast in it or deny the truth.
- Proverbs 6:14 With deceit in his heart he devises evil; he continually sows discord.
- Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”
- Proverbs 6:19 a false witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up discord among brothers.
- 1 Timothy 6:3 If anyone teaches another doctrine and disagrees with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and with godly teaching,
- 1 Samuel 24:9 and said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of men who say, ‘Look, David intends to harm you’?