Proverbs 21:23 Commentary and Bible Study

We must also think about the outworking of strategy, about keeping key positions, setting a guard on the weakest points. Suppose you are a defender under attack, and you have to set the evening guard around the city. Where are you going to place the men? You have not got that many, so you will obviously place them at the gates or the weak points. At a strong point, you will perhaps post fewer, if any people. We know it is about guarding, because the Hebrew word translated ‘keep’ literally means fence about or hedge about. Actually the English word keep means exactly the same, except that we do not think of it that way today. Think of the keep of a castle, and you have got the derivation of the word keep: a strong defence from attackers.Look at the two gates on which the guard is mounted in the proverb – your mouth and your tongue. Is Solomon just repeating himself? Is he using two words where one will do? No, in Psalm 141 you have exactly the same type of phrasing, but in that case, king David goes on to talk about appetites and words. There are two key points to be defended in the ongoing process of sanctification – your appetites and your words. The apostle Paul speaks of how strenuously he keeps down his body in 1 Corinthians 9. He uses very graphic terms and says something like, I give a black eye to my body. He uses a Greek compound word which literally refers to a blow beneath the eye. He does not mean it literally of course. But he pommels or buffets his body strenuously to keep it under control.As far as words are concerned, we read about that in the epistle of James. We read that to be able to control your words is like the rudder of a great ship. You can turn all your conduct round by just controlling speech.