Like snow in summer and rain at harvest, honor does not befit a fool.
Parallel translations
- WEB Like snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.
- KJV As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool.
- NKJV As snow in summer and rain in harvest, So honor is not fitting for a fool.
- NASB Like snow in summer and like rain in harvest, So honor is not fitting for a fool.
- NLT Honor is no more associated with fools than snow with summer or rain with harvest.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Honoring a fool is as out of place as snow in summer or rain at harvest. Folly does not deserve esteem.
Overview
This opens a section on the fool (vv. 1-12), teaching that giving honor to one who despises wisdom is unnatural and harmful. Honor wrongly placed disrupts the moral order, like weather that ruins a harvest. It reminds us that true honor belongs to wisdom and ultimately to God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Prov 19:10Luxury is unseemly for a fool—how much worse for a slave to rule over princes!
- Prov 28:16A leader who lacks judgment is also a great oppressor, but he who hates dishonest profit will prolong his days.
- Ps 12:8The wicked wander freely, and vileness is exalted among men.
- Ps 15:4who despises the vile but honors those who fear the LORD, who does not revise a costly oath,
- Esth 4:6So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square in front of the king’s gate,
- 1 Sam 12:17–18Is it not the wheat harvest today? I will call on the LORD to send thunder and rain, so that you will know and see what a great evil you have committed in the sight of the LORD by asking for a king.”
- Esth 3:1–15After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him to a position above all the princes who were with him.
- Judg 9:7When this was reported to Jotham, he climbed to the top of Mount Gerizim, raised his voice, and cried out: “Listen to me, O leaders of Shechem, and may God listen to you.
- Judg 9:20But if not, may fire come from Abimelech and consume the leaders of Shechem and Beth-millo, and may fire come from the leaders of Shechem and Beth-millo and consume Abimelech.”
- Eccl 10:5–7There is an evil I have seen under the sun—an error that proceeds from the ruler:
- Prov 26:8Like binding a stone into a sling is the giving of honor to a fool.
- Judg 9:56–57In this way God repaid the wickedness that Abimelech had done to his father in murdering his seventy brothers.
- Ps 52:1For the choirmaster. A Maskil of David. After Doeg the Edomite went to Saul and told him, “David has gone to the house of Ahimelech.” Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The loving devotion of God endures all day long.
- Esth 4:9So Hathach went back and relayed Mordecai’s response to Esther.
- Prov 17:7Eloquent words are unfit for a fool; how much worse are lying lips to a ruler!
- Prov 26:3A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the backs of fools!
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 26:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.