Friday, December 12, 2025

Proverbs

 A while ago, I happened on Proverbs 18:2,

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
 but only in expressing personal opinion.

That struck me as describing a great deal of social media.

 I had been looking for Proverbs 24:16,

for though [the just] fall seven times, they will rise again;
but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.

 A math teacher of mine in high school, a member of the Christian Brothers (FCS) quoted that as saying that the just man falls seven times a day. He inferred from this that if you made only seven mistakes a day you were perfect. I don't think he graded that way; perhaps he said it to excuse his own occasional errors at the blackboard. The period of a day to cover the seven falls or stumbles must have been his own, I think.

I have once or twice quoted 24:16, to ESL classes, when students have preferred silence to the chance of making a mistake. 

 (All quotations are from the Revised Standard Version.) 

 

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