In the passage before us, King Solomon continues to describe the virtue of wisdom: how words of wisdom become for the wise man like the sweetness of a honeycomb, how he possesses the power to rebuke the fool and guide him back to the right path, and finally - the opposite description, the way of the scoundrel. We will first study the first three verses together, as the Malbim connects them into a single progression, and then return to examine them according to the other commentators as well.
צוּף דְּבַשׁ אִמְרֵי נֹעַם, מָתוֹק לַנֶּפֶשׁ וּמַרְפֵּא לָעָצֶם׃ - Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
Rashi explains: "Honeycomb" (tzuf devash) - the sweetness of honey; "pleasant words" (imrei no'am) - words of Torah. The words of Torah are sweet as honey. Rabbeinu Yonah adds: Just as the nectar of honey is sweet to the palate of man, so pleasant words are sweet to the soul of the wise person. And not only that, but they are also healing to the bone, healing to his limbs.
And this is the simple truth: a person who pursues wisdom, when he hears a word of wisdom, his face lights up. You see him radiant; you see the genuine delight he experiences. Anyone who has ever seen a maggid shiur deliver an in-depth Talmudic topic and explain a line of reasoning has seen that enthusiasm, that joy, that wisdom - it is truly a honeycomb. And it is not merely sweet to the soul, but literally healing to the bones: a person might not have been feeling well, but once he enters the sugya and begins to delve deeply, the joy and enthusiasm bring him to good health.
The Vilna Gaon explains that any sweet substance is called honey (devash), while "tzuf" refers to something exceedingly sweet, as in the phrase "the drippings of the honeycomb" (nofet tzufim). Tzuf is superior to honey: honey is sweet but not beneficial to the body, whereas tzuf is sweeter and also good for the body. The Gaon does not define precisely what this tzuf is, only that it is superior to honey, as it is written: "Have you found honey? Eat only what is sufficient for you," indicating that excessive consumption of honey is harmful. We even know this fact in everyday life: infants are not given honey at all until age one, as it contains substances that can be harmful. Regarding this, the verse says: pleasant words are like tzuf - sweet to the soul and also healing to the bone, and the bone is the core of the body.
Here the Vilna Gaon delves deeper: To what does this correspond? After a person passes away, he undergoes two judgments - Gehinom and the tribulations of the grave (chibut hakever). Gehinom is for the soul, but chibut hakever takes place down here, in the grave, which implies that it pertains to the body. For if that were not so, after judgment has already concluded on High, why would angels be sent down here to beat him?
As previously explained, chibut hakever is meant to separate the soul from the body. It is very difficult for the soul to detach from the body because it remains attached to the desires and pleasures of this world. The angels then arrive, deepen the grave to create standing room, grasp him from both sides, and shake him as one shakes a tallit. And who does not experience chibut hakever? One who had no physical desires in this world - for there is nothing from which to separate him; or one who passes away and is buried after midday on Friday (some say passing away, and some say the essential factor is burial after midday) - provided that his burial is not delayed for that purpose.
Thus, Gehinom is for the soul and chibut hakever is for the body. And what saves a person from these? Pleasant words. This is the exact opposite of what we saw earlier: "For the lips of a strange woman drip honey, and her palate is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword" - "bitter as wormwood" refers to the Gehinom of the soul, and "sharp as a two-edged sword" refers to the chibut hakever of the body. By contrast, one who possesses pleasant words, who engaged in Torah, has nothing to fear: "sweet to the soul" - he will not see the face of Gehinom; "and healing to the bones" - the body will retain its strength and will not suffer chibut hakever.
The Malbim explains that this verse continues what we learned earlier: "The heart of the wise instructs his mouth, and adds learning to his lips." And what does he add? Honeycomb - when he possesses deep knowledge (da'at) on his lips. That is to say: those matters that initially came to him solely through tradition, as received from the prophets, have become so thoroughly understood that they reach the level of lucid, firsthand knowledge. Furthermore, he adds learning (lekach) to them - fresh insights and deeper understanding. When one reaches this stage, he sweetens the teachings and grasps them so profoundly that they become like honeycomb.
What does this mean in practice? A teacher might instruct a student in something, and the student asks for the underlying logic, only to be told: "I do not know; that is simply how it is." The concept might be registered intellectually, but it is not sweet; it does not taste good to the palate, because it was not made savory and no rationale was provided. However, when one does not merely say "accept this on authority," but succeeds in imparting the flavor of the ideas, providing their rationale and inner logic until everything fits together harmoniously and makes compelling sense, it becomes truly sweet, akin to honeycomb. Once a person adds learning to his lips and attains the level of deep knowledge, he sweetens the principles of wisdom until he discovers their delight and tastes their goodness - the very nectar within them.
And what is *no'am* (pleasantness)? The Malbim explains: spiritual pleasantness. One experiences spiritual delight from matters that stem from the spiritual intellect. When a person learns something he enjoys, discovering a wonderful insight, he feels profound spiritual pleasure in grasping it. Know, therefore, that this honeycomb is not a physical sweetness for the palate, but rather "sweet to the soul" - a sweetness from which the soul derives spiritual delight through the study itself.
Notice this precise nuance: honey is typically a physical pleasure for the body, whereas pleasant words pertain to the soul - one hears a beautiful idea and takes delight in it, and who experiences that pleasure? The soul. Yet Scripture comes to teach us that in the Torah, the spiritual dimensions bring delight even to the body, and the physical facets, as it were, bring delight to the soul. Thus it is said, "Pleasant words are sweet to the soul," and not to the soul alone, but also "and healing to the bone": even the bone, a purely physical and material entity, experiences pleasure, uplift, and joy from it.
We find a similar idea regarding one who hears good tidings, about which it is written, "It fattens the bone." Seemingly, what is the connection? It should have said that it fattens the soul! Rather, there is a profound connection between the spiritual and the physical realms - what scholars term the psychophysical connection: there is continuous feedback between the soul and the body. When a person is depressed, he loses his appetite - does the body not have its own physical needs? Yet the state of the soul directly impacts the body. Conversely, when a person's body is broken, his spirit is often broken as well. Those who suffer physical disability can easily become emotionally impaired as well; if they are not built up and guided, the physical handicap leads to emotional devastation, self-pity, and melancholy, viewing oneself as a wretched soul with nothing to live for - and he truly becomes miserable. There is a mutual balance and reciprocal influence between the two.
The same holds true here: pleasant words are not reserved exclusively for the soul; they are also healing to the bone, and the honeycomb is not merely healing to the bone, but also sweet to the soul. Thus, through the power of Torah and the comprehension of wisdom, there is healing for both soul and body. Once a person possesses this strength, he can naturally guide and rectify others as well: having attained a level where he understands the principles of wisdom and identifies with them completely, he is equipped to turn the foolish back to the proper path through the instruction he offers them.
יֵשׁ דֶּרֶךְ יָשָׁר לִפְנֵי אִישׁ, וְאַחֲרִיתָהּ דַּרְכֵי מָוֶת׃ - There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the ways of death.
נֶפֶשׁ עָמֵל עָמְלָה לּוֹ, כִּי אָכַף עָלָיו פִּיהוּ׃ - The appetite of the laborer labors for him, for his mouth urges him on.
The Malbim explains that these two verses directly follow the preceding discussion: How does the fool walk the path of folly? Because the path seems right to him: "There is a way that seems right to a man." How then can one convince him that he is mistaken, when he points and says: "Look, this is the right way! Indulge, enjoy yourself, eat whatever you desire, live without boundaries - that is the straight path! What you demand of me, to restrict myself, to deny myself pleasure - that is a treacherous road, a path of sheer suffering!"
And how will the possessor of the "sweet honey" prove his mistake to him? He will say to him: "There is a way that seems right to a person" - it seems right to you to indulge the desires of the body, to follow the sight of your heart and eyes, to walk along the paved path without fences and do whatever you feel like - "yet its end is the ways of death." The body will eventually die and decay, and then the spiritual soul will perish as well. How can you say, "Enjoy yourself, it is good and right, give the body whatever it wants," without looking even a step ahead? What kind of claim is it that this is the upright path, when its end is like that?
And he continues: "The soul of a laborer labors for him, for his mouth compels him." Is it conceivable that a person's soul should toil - and all because "his mouth compels him," that the mouth wants to eat and forces and compels the spiritual soul to toil incessantly so that it can eat? That is, can it be that you take the sublime, exalted spiritual soul and enslave it merely to provide food for the mouth? This person takes all the spiritual faculties within him and enslaves them to desires, physical indulgence, and worldly affairs. And what occupies his thoughts all the time? Money, food, and things of that sort. How is it possible that the soul, which is the essence of eternal life, should become a lifelong slave to the body and its desires, which are temporary and end up decaying in the grave?
These are the Malbim's words: "Is there any greater folly than this, that this precious soul should abandon its spirituality and toil" in material matters out of the compulsion of the mouth wanting to eat and drink - "Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" - "and nothing will remain for the soul from all its toil." We can compare this to two people and two entities: one is the soul, the eternal spiritual component, and the other is the body, the physical component, and for both of them, whatever they amass for themselves is what they will have. And the body, the physical person, comes and forces the spiritual soul. Yet what the soul toils for will remain with it forever, whereas what the body toils for and what others toil for on its behalf will vanish at the end of seventy years. Is it conceivable that the temporary should compel the eternal, so that instead of the soul utilizing those seventy years to attain eternity, the body forces it to serve it - and everything it toils for over those seventy years will be wiped out? This is folly beyond measure.
And this is what he will argue to him: Do not look at the fact that "there is a way that seems right to a person," that it currently seems enjoyable to go and indulge. Know that "its end is the ways of death." And even though the path of wisdom appears full of thorns - after all, you demand of me mortifications, delayed gratification, overcoming desires, and this is forbidden and that is forbidden - nevertheless, its ultimate end is uprightness, its end is life. "This is what the discerning intellect speaks regarding the life of the soul, its spiritual matters, and its immortality after death."
The Malbim notes that he already mentioned this matter earlier in chapter 14: "Fools mock at guilt... The heart knows its own soul's bitterness," and there we explained that even fools know that what they do will come back to them like a boomerang; they know they will suffer from all the lusts they indulge in this world. And how do they know? Because it is clear to them that "there is a way that seems right to a person" - true, right now it seems right, but in the end they will receive the reckoning, "yet its end is the ways of death." Deep down inside, the heart knows: I will yet suffer for what I am doing.
Therefore, this is the way the wise person will rebuke the fool, for this is rain falling on fertile ground. It is rain that will have an effect, because deep down the fool also knows you are right; consequently, it will be easier to elicit his identification, and he will be more willing to change his ways.
And why has the teshuvah movement gained such momentum in recent decades? For this very same reason. In the past, when you wanted to explain to someone that there is a way of life, he would tell you: No, where I am, people are having a great time, everything is fine. But after all the secular ideals have fallen flat, after he sees that the children he raises lack proper values, that there is no peace in the home, and that he has already exhausted physical pleasures and desires to the end, he realizes he has reached a broken trough. And when you knock on his door and tell him you have something to say to him, he is already willing to listen. In the past, when he still thought he had something to offer, when there were still ideologies and still a certain level of values and derech eretz, and he felt he also had something of substance, there was no one to talk to. This is what the verse tells us: deep down, the fool already knows that things are rotten on his end and that he is destined to pay a price, and therefore, this is how one can approach him and rebuke him.
Thus far we have explained the three verses together according to the Malbim, but the other commentators do not connect them, so let us return to verse 25. Rabbeinu Yonah explains that this was also stated earlier regarding laughter and frivolity: laughter and merriment seem to be a legitimate, permitted path, but its end is the ways of death. The intention is not to a person who is constantly joyful - that is not what is being discussed - but rather to someone who takes all of life lightly, whose whole life is parties, mockery, and "as for mirth, what does it accomplish?" Regarding this kind of laughter it is said: here you are still celebrating, but know that "even in laughter the heart aches," and afterward comes heartache and suffering. Therefore, do not engage excessively in laughter. And in our context, Rabbeinu Yonah says that this verse was written in connection with the verse that follows it - "The soul of a laborer labors for him."
Rabbeinu Yonah explains: sometimes the laborer's soul toils for the sake of the body - the soul toils for the body rather than for itself, along the same lines as the Malbim. And this is the opposite of the wise person's conduct, whose soul toils for itself, seeing to what will remain for it after one hundred and twenty years rather than what will come of this body. However, there is a linguistic difference between them: according to the Malbim, akhaf denotes compulsion - the mouth and bodily desires compel the soul to be enslaved to them. But according to Rabbeinu Yonah, akhaf denotes heaviness and burden, "for the needs of his mouth weighed heavily upon him," as in "nor shall my pressure be heavy upon you." The pleasures of cravings and delicacies weigh down upon the soul and insistently demand that it see to supplying its needs and pleasures, while in the end its outcome is the ways of death: you consume your days in vanity and servitude to the body, and you do not engage in rectifying the soul.
The Vilna Gaon explains that regarding "There is a way that seems right to a man" - even the Sitra Achra (the side of impurity) sometimes appears to a person as an upright path, as we have seen: "For the lips of a strange woman drip honey." There is a state in which the Sitra Achra presents itself as a proper path: come, this is the right way, this is how one ought to behave, this is how one ought to live. And as we have explained in the past, the evil inclination sometimes has the power to clothe itself even in rabbinic garb, and it has the power to show you a transgression as if it were a mitzvah. It seems to a person that this is the upright path and that this is the proper way to conduct oneself.
"Yet its end is the ways of death" - note the precision: it does not say "way" in the singular, but "ways" in the plural. When you are in the hands of the Sitra Achra, it does not matter where he took you from - all paths lead to death. He tries in a way that appears to you as a mitzvah, makes you appear righteous to yourself, and seduces you with a thousand and one methods - a thousand and one ways, and all of them ultimately lead to Gehenna. Therefore, do not be tempted by the fact that the path seems upright to you at its start.
On the verse, "The appetite of the laborer labors for him," the Vilna Gaon explains in light of what Chazal said: "If you have learned much Torah, do not take credit for yourself, for it was for this that you were created." After all, before a person is born, while still in his mother's womb, he is taught the entire Torah - everything he is capable of attaining in this world, he is taught there. And this is "If you have learned much Torah" - and why did you learn much Torah? "For it was for this that you were created," for this purpose you were formed. That very Torah that you learned in your mother's womb was taught to you because you must learn it in your lifetime. Therefore, do not be satisfied with little and do not say "This is enough for me" - rather, what you learned then was so that you would attain it now.
And through this, the saying "If you toiled and found - believe it" is explained, which on its face is astonishing. If I toiled, then I did not "find" it! Something a person acquires through toil is the very opposite of a find, for a found object comes unexpectedly, without prior thought. If I toiled for three days and built a table - did I "find" the table? It should say "You toiled and made," or "You walked and found," but "You toiled and found"? Rather, the Vilna Gaon explains: if you toiled in a matter of Torah and arrived at a solution, know that nothing new was created for you right now; rather, this understanding was already within you from your mother's womb, but it was lost, and now that you toiled and reached it, you have simply found what was lost to you. It is not "I delved deeply and devised a novel resolution," but truly a find, because it was already yours and had only been misplaced.
And this is what is written in our verse: "The appetite of the laborer labors for him, for his mouth compels him" - that very mouth that learned the entire Torah before he came into the world is what compels and forces him to be a toiling soul. By virtue of what does he toil? By virtue of his mouth, which already toiled before he entered the world. And so it is with deeds: the rule is that if one's deeds exceed his wisdom, his wisdom endures, but if his wisdom exceeds his deeds, his wisdom does not endure; and whoever studies Torah without fulfilling it, it would have been better had his afterbirth turned over upon his face; "act even more than you study." So if you see that you are performing good deeds, know from where that strength comes: from the power that "his mouth compels him." And so too with the study itself - the mouth that learned Torah in the mother's womb compels and urges him to engage in and fulfill these things.
In the Gemara in Masechet Sanhedrin (folio 99b): Rabbi Akiva said, "Sing every day, sing every day." Rav Yitzchak bar Avudimi said: What is the biblical verse? As it says, "The appetite of the laborer labors for him, for his mouth compels him" - he toils in this place, and his Torah toils for him in another place. And Rashi explains: "Sing every day" - arrange your study, even if it is already arranged in your mouth like a song; and this will cause you to be in the World to Come in joy and song.
The concept is familiar: when one wants to remember something, there is a method of putting it to music. People set the multiplication table to music for children so they will remember it, and so they will not forget the English alphabet, they made a song out of it. When one makes a song, it is easier to remember, and Chazal already noted this advantage. Therefore Rabbi Akiva said, "Sing every day" - let the learning be fluent and organized like a song, and then you will merit the World to Come in joy and song. "The appetite of the laborer labors for him" - because he toils in Torah, the Torah toils for him. "For his mouth compels him" (*akef alav pihu*) - Rashi says: he constantly places words in his mouth, like a saddle (*ukaf*) on a donkey.
And another explanation can be added to what they said, "He toils in this place, and his Torah toils for him in another place": often, a person studies a particular topic, and suddenly another topic becomes clear to him; a difficulty in a completely different place is resolved. How? "The appetite of the laborer labors for him" - you toil in one matter, and it labors for you in another matter; as it were, through this the soul attains insights in other areas of the Torah. Therefore, a person must always increase his Torah study and not remain stuck in one place saying, "This matter is still not clear to me." Learn more and more, and the additional areas will help you comprehend even the place where you were stuck.
And Rashi brings another explanation: "Sing (*zamer*) every day" - one who constantly engages in songs and melodies becomes a singer (*zamar*), and so too, one who reviews his Torah, it becomes fluent in his mouth. Just as in the pursuit of song, when a person always sings he becomes a singer, so too one who sings and chants the Torah, the Torah becomes part of him and fluent in his mouth. And regarding what they said, "And his Torah toils for him in another place," Rashi explains: it goes around on his behalf and requests from its Creator to transmit to him the reasons of the Torah and its details. Why? Because *akef* - he bent and submitted - his mouth to the words of Torah. Here we have a novel explanation of the verse: a person toils in Torah, but toils to the limit of his ability, and the intellectual capacity he was given cannot grasp more. He is told: you have nothing to worry about. Know that while you toil here below, the Torah you have learned ascends above and beseeches the Master of the World to bestow Torah upon you - even things you could never have grasped on your own, even concepts that spiritually are many levels above you. And why? Because he bent his mouth to the words of Torah, compelling and obligating his mouth to engage solely in Torah.
אִישׁ בְּלִיַּעַל כֹּרֶה רָעָה, וְעַל שְׂפָתוֹ כְּאֵשׁ צָרָבֶת׃ - A base person digs up evil, and upon his lips it is like a scorching fire.
Rabbeinu Yonah connects this to the previous verse: Since we mentioned that the wise person thinks about what he wishes to say before he speaks, and not only that, but in the course of speaking he "adds learning" - further words of wisdom and new insights that unfold as he speaks - come and see that there is an exact opposite. The wicked person, too, before committing an evil deed, first delves deeply into wicked thoughts: "I will catch him, I will confront him, I will show him." And when he catches him, he carries out what he planned. Just as with the wise person new insights arise while speaking and he adds more, so too the wicked person, amidst his anger and words, boils over even further and adds things that were not in his original plan, things springing from momentary fury - except that with him, everything is for evil.
And what is koreh ("digs")? Rabbeinu Yonah explains: koreh means digging and delving deep. That is, he does not merely do evil casually, but delves deep and calculates: how will I talk to him, what will I do to him, how will I harm him? Afterwards, in the course of doing harm, out of his fury and anger he adds and multiplies - and this is "and upon his lips it is like a scorching fire," like a burning fire to which he keeps adding fuel from the fiery heat of uttering the words.
What is beliya'al? The Vilna Gaon says: a person devoid of fear of Hashem is called beliya'al, from the phrase beli ol - without a yoke, having cast off the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. And this person "digs up evil" - constantly digging, excavating, and scheming how to do evil to his fellow. "And upon his lips," meaning his speech, is "like a scorching fire" - as the Gemara notes, that people would pierce one another with the swords of their tongues. There are people whose mouths you should never approach: their tongue is razor-sharp, and if you say a single word, they skewer you with their speech. This is the wicked person: he both digs up evil, scheming how to harm his fellow, and his tongue is cutting, dreadfully harsh, degrading, humiliating, hurtful, and insulting - all with the swords of his tongue, without ever lifting a hand.
And know that verbal violence is often far worse than physical violence. A slap to the cheek - a child might forget it the next day. But when you speak humiliating words to a child, telling him that he is a zero, that he is worthless, that nothing will ever come of him, that you are ashamed of him - that wound remains like a sear, like a burn of fire in his soul for many years. Those children who grow up to be adults emotionally scarred by their parents are scarred primarily by insults, degradation, and a lack of respect toward the child. Of course, striking is also unquestionably negative, should a person Heaven forbid accustom himself to hitting his children, but harsh words are far worse than a blow.
There is a fable, seemingly of non-Jewish origin: It is told that a man once had a bear for a friend. They lived together and cared for one another. One day, the bear ate something, perhaps some carcass, and when he approached the man to hug him, the man smelled his breath and said, "You stink so badly, no one can come near you!" It is told that the bear backed away, deeply hurt by these words. He walked away brooding, and the next day he returned to the man, brought him a stick, and said, "Strike me." The man replied, "I do not want to. Why would I strike you? You are my friend." The bear insisted, "No, please, strike me." He struck him, and the bear said, "Strike again, harder" - until blood was drawn. Then the bear said to him, "Do you see? These wounds will heal, but the wound you inflicted on me with your words will take a very long time to heal." And with that, he bid him farewell.
This parable illustrates the point: once a misplaced word has been uttered, an insulting and hurtful statement, it is very difficult to gather it back. A physical blow fades, even a broken bone can heal, but emotional brokenness, insult, betrayal, and the like - these are exceptionally difficult, and this is "like a scorching fire," a fiery burn that is agonizingly severe.
The Vilna Gaon focuses here on three realms, as he will later on as well: thought, speech, and action. These are three dimensions in human functioning, and there is a hierarchy here: thought is the highest, speech is below it, and action is below speech. If we were to ask where the greater damage lies, we might imagine that the greatest flaw is in action: "Here I only thought it, there I only spoke it, but here I actually did it." Yet the truth is precisely the opposite.
For corresponding to these three are nefesh, ru'ach, and neshamah. The nefesh is associated with the blood, residing in the blood and the liver. The ru'ach is a more spiritual dimension, residing in the heart. And the neshamah is already in the brain, the intellect (mochin), which is the loftiest level. When a person blemishes the nefesh, this is the lowest blemish, affecting the physical realm. When one blemishes the ru'ach, this is already the faculty of speech, the "speaking spirit" (ru'ach memalela), an elevated and exalted realm. And when one blemishes thought, the Rambam says it is as if he placed an idol in the Sanctuary. This is because thought is the Holy of Holies, the highest level, the intellect, the crown, the dwelling place of the neshamah - or even more, the neshamah itself transcends it and casts sparks of its light into the intellect of man. Since this is the highest realm, a blemish in thought is the most severe flaw of all. One who brings dust into a king's palace cannot be compared to one who soils a public restroom at a central bus station: even though one caused actual filth and the other only stirred up a bit of dust, for dust in the king's palace one can lose his head, whereas heavy filth in ordinary places is not treated with such severity. And thought is the king's palace.
Based on this, the Vilna Gaon explains that there are three elements here: "beliyya'al" (worthlessness) in thought, for he constantly thinks evil thoughts; "digs up evil" in action, actually digging in practice; and "on his lips" in speech. Corresponding to man's three faculties of action, he cites the three actions of the wicked person: evil thought, evil action, and his speech is evil - his lips are like a scorching fire.
The Ralbag explains that a corrupt person constantly plots evil in his heart, and when he utters words on his lips, what is in his heart becomes evident. That is to say, how do you know what he is planning and what evil he is plotting? When you hear what he speaks. And the Ralbag adds: even more evil comes out of his mouth than what is actually in his heart. This is a reality we often see among wicked people: he boasts of wickedness and makes threats of wickedness far beyond what he will actually do in practice. "A corrupt person digs up evil" - he thinks evil thoughts, but "on his lips it is like a scorching fire" - if you hear him describing what he will do, how he will finish him off, eliminate him, and destroy him, behold, on his lips there is far more than what is truly in his heart.
One can add to this: in reality, when a person thinks ill of someone, in speech he says far more than he truly thinks. This is very common during an argument - between spouses, business partners, acquaintances, or relatives - where people often say things well beyond what they genuinely think. One must always remember this, so that we take such words with a grain of salt. Sometimes, in the heat of an argument, a person utters things he does not think at all; rather, because you attack me, I strike back with a counter-attack, wanting to match the weight of the accusations you hurled at me. Therefore, I hurl accusations at you that I sometimes know are not true of you. But because we are in an argument, I want to show that you are presenting me unfairly, that you intended this and wanted to do that to me - even though in truth that was never your intention.
And why is it important to remember this? Because after a storm comes the calm, and sometimes the greatest trouble after the storm subsides is the emotional fallout left behind. Then it becomes difficult to mend fences and restore peace, because she remembers what he said to her in the heat of the argument, and he remembers what she said to him, and for a long time it is difficult to remove the bitterness from the heart. But if a person knows, in the words of the Ralbag, that a person sometimes exaggerates and goes to extremes in speech far beyond what he truly thinks, he will take the words with a grain of salt and not truly attribute them to the one who said them.
The Malbim explains: After having described the path of wisdom - which clothes a person with humility, bitachon, ruach hakodesh, and the ability to return those who stray back to Hashem, as we saw that through the grace poured upon his lips he draws those who are distant closer - the verse now comes to show what the fool looks like. The path of the fool is completely opposite, and this is the way of Shlomo: one opposite the other, come and see the advantage of wisdom over folly like the advantage of light over darkness.
There is a corrupt person - one who has completely cast off the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven - and he "digs up evil" in his heart, in the depths; this is why it is called digging, like a tunnel dug deep down. He digs up evil in the depths and thinks ill of his fellow. "And on his lips it is like a scorching fire" - and here the Malbim explains differently from all the commentaries we have seen: When he meets his fellow - "Shalom aleichem! What great joy I have to meet you! How long I have waited to see you! Truly from Heaven, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent you here! What a wonderful day that I have merited to see you!" In short, he flatters him, an actual scorching fire of love that he outwardly showers upon his fellow - yet inside, "a corrupt person digs up evil," inside he harbors evil thoughts about him.
There is a Yemenite saying that translates as follows: When a guest arrives at an inconvenient time, the host says, as it were, "Baruch Hashem, how good that you arrived, I am so happy to see you!" - and in the very same breath snaps, "Who left the door open?" Meaning, why did you leave the door open, do I have time for guests now? I want to go rest. So too is the corrupt person: he digs up evil, and on his lips it is like a scorching fire - with a fiery enthusiasm he welcomes you, but deep down inside, his thoughts are malicious.
And this idea is expressed in another verse: "Like silver dross coating an earthen vessel, so are burning lips and a wicked heart." It is the exact same idea: on the outside it appears like silver, and his lips burn with love toward his fellow, speaking with enthusiasm and joy as if he is so delighted by his company - yet with "a wicked heart." Here too: "his lips are like a scorching fire," while deep down inside, "a corrupt person digs up evil."
In this section we have learned the path that ascends from wisdom to sweetness: one who has attained complete knowledge in Torah and continually increases learning finds that the words of Torah become for him "a honeycomb" - sweet to the soul and healing to the bones, a spiritual sweetness that also brings healing to the body, and salvation from the Gehinnom of the soul and the chibut hakever (torment of the grave) of the body. By virtue of this level, he is able to rebuke the fool and show him unparalleled folly: that the eternal soul should become an indentured servant to the temporary mouth and body, for "there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the ways of death." And because the fool deep down knows the truth, the rebuke falls on fertile ground. From here, Shlomo moves on to show the opposite: the corrupt man, whose three faculties of action are entirely evil - thought, speech, and action - digs up evil in the depths of his heart, and his lips are like a scorching fire, whether through the swords of his tongue or through flattery that is nothing more than a cover for a wicked heart. And from this comes a tremendous lesson in the power of words: a physical blow heals, but a hurtful remark remains a scorch on the soul for years.