Better is open rebuke Than love that is concealed.
Parallel translations
- WEB Better is open rebuke than hidden love.
- KJV Open rebuke is better than secret love.
- BSB Better an open rebuke than love that is concealed.
- NKJV Open rebuke is better Than love carefully concealed.
- NLT An open rebuke is better than hidden love!
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
Honest correction openly given is better than affection that stays silent and hidden. It teaches that real love sometimes confronts rather than flatters.
Overview
The verse prizes candid rebuke over a love too timid to speak hard truth, since concealed love that never corrects fails the one it claims to cherish. This reflects the biblical pattern that genuine love seeks another's good even at the cost of comfort. God Himself disciplines those He loves (Hebrews 12:6), and Christ rebukes and chastens those He calls His own (Revelation 3:19).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Prov 28:23One who rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than one who flatters with the tongue.
- 1 Tim 5:20Those who sin, reprove in the sight of all, that the rest also may be in fear.
- Gal 2:14But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?
- Matt 18:15“If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother.
- Lev 19:17“‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.
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 27:5 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.