Bible Strands
Proverbs 29:8
Mockers inflame a city, but the wise turn away anger.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The author of Proverbs addresses the community regarding civic conduct, placing this maxim between observations about the righteous care for the poor and the futility of debating fools.
The words — לָ֭צוֹן (La.tzon) means mockery, and יָפִ֣יחוּ (ya.Fi.chu) literally means they inflame or blow upon, describing how provocative speech fuels communal unrest.
The thread — This contrast between destructive and pacifying speech appears in Proverbs 11:11, where the wicked tear down a city, and Proverbs 16:14, where wisdom pacifies the wrath of a king.
Why it lands — The text states that mockers ignite civic conflict while the wise de-escalate it, requiring readers to evaluate their own speech as either a catalyst for division or a tool for restoration.
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
Scornful men bring a city into a snare: but wise men turn away wrath.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 11:11 By the blessing of the upright a city is built up, but by the mouth of the wicked it is torn down.
- Jeremiah 15:1 Then the LORD said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel should stand before Me, My heart would not go out to this people. Send them from My presence, and let them go!
- Proverbs 16:14 The wrath of a king is a messenger of death, but a wise man will pacify it.
- James 3:5 In the same way, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it boasts of great things. Consider how small a spark sets a great forest ablaze.
- James 5:15 And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.
- Exodus 32:10 Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
- Numbers 16:48 He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague was halted.
- Numbers 25:11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned My wrath away from the Israelites; for he was zealous for My sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in My zeal.
- Deuteronomy 9:18 Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD and provoking Him to anger.
- 2 Samuel 24:16 But when the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.