Proverbs 24:23–26

This brief appendix from the collected "sayings of the wise" (Prov 24:23–26) addresses two of the most demanding social virtues: the courage to render just judgment without flattery, and the beauty of honest, forthright speech. The passage condemns those who excuse the wicked and praise those who boldly convict the guilty, concluding with the striking image that a direct, honest answer is as intimate and precious as a kiss. Together, these verses teach that authentic love of neighbor requires truth, not flattery.

Verse 23 — "These also are sayings of the wise" This editorial superscription signals that what follows is a secondary collection appended to the main Solomonic section (Prov 22:17–24:22), attributed more broadly to unnamed sages within Israel's wisdom tradition. The phrase "also" (Hebrew: gam-'elleh) deliberately ties this cluster to the earlier "words of the wise" (22:17), suggesting a continuity of authority and tradition. The reader is put on notice: what follows carries the weight of tested, communal wisdom, not personal opinion.

Verse 24 — "He who says to the wicked, 'You are righteous,' will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations" The Hebrew behind "righteous" (tsaddiq) is a legal and moral term — to declare someone tsaddiq in a judicial context is to acquit them. The sage identifies a specific social sin: the corruption of judgment through false exoneration. This is not merely a private lie but a public catastrophe. The curse that follows is notably communal — "peoples" and "nations" are the witnesses, indicating that unjust speech corrupts the entire social fabric. Proverbs is relentlessly concerned with the way individual moral failures ripple outward into community; the judge who flatters the guilty does not merely harm a single case but unravels the covenant order of society. This verse presupposes the judicial setting of the gate (Deut 16:18–20), where elders decided disputes, and flattery of the powerful was a perennial temptation.

Verse 25 — "But it will go well with those who convict the guilty, and a good blessing will come upon them" The Hebrew yakichu ("convict" or "rebuke") is the same root used in Lev 19:17 for fraternal correction — hocheach tochiach — suggesting that the wisdom tradition and the Torah are reading the same moral landscape. To convict the guilty is not cruelty; it is itself a form of blessing, and it draws down blessing upon the one who does it. The sage inverts the worldly calculus: popular wisdom might say that acquitting the powerful is safe and profitable, but divine wisdom teaches that the honest judge prospers. The "good blessing" (birkat-tov) evokes the covenant blessings of Deuteronomy — this is wisdom integrated with Mosaic theology.

Verse 26 — "An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips" This verse is one of Proverbs' most memorable images. "Honest" (nekochim, literally "straight" or "right") modifies the answer, and the kiss (nashaq) on the lips is a sign of deep personal loyalty, friendship, and covenant fidelity in the ancient Near Eastern world. The comparison is audacious: a frank, truthful word addressed to another person is as intimate, warm, and life-giving as a kiss between friends. Proverbs here refuses any false dichotomy between truth-telling and love; honest speech an act of affection. It is the flattery of verse 24 — the "smooth words" that call wicked men righteous — that is the real betrayal, not honesty. The contrast implicitly evokes Judas's kiss (Matt 26:49): a kiss can be weaponized into treachery, just as speech can be weaponized into flattery. The kiss of truth, by contrast, builds up.

Catholic tradition offers rich resources for interpreting this passage. The Catechism directly addresses the virtue at stake in verse 24 under the eighth commandment: "Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury… including flattery" (CCC 2477, 2480). Crucially, the Catechism distinguishes flattery as a moral offense not merely because it deceives but because it "encourages and confirms another in malicious acts and perverse conduct" (CCC 2480) — precisely the dynamic Proverbs condemns.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae (II-II, q. 115), treats flattery (adulatio) as a vice opposed to friendship: the true friend wills the genuine good of the other, which sometimes demands correction. Aquinas draws on Aristotle but baptizes the insight: the courageous judge of Prov 24:24–25 is exercising what Thomas calls fidelitas — the justice owed to truth in social relationships.

St. Augustine in De Mendacio argues that no good end justifies a lie, and that false acquittal — even when motivated by apparent mercy — ultimately dishonors both God and the person excused, since it denies them the possibility of genuine conversion.

Verse 26's image of the honest answer as a kiss finds a profound echo in patristic Christology. Origen, commenting on the Song of Songs, identifies the "kiss of the mouth" with the Incarnation — the Father's Word kissing humanity through the flesh of Christ. The honest Word spoken by God into human history becomes the supreme model of what verse 26 commends: speech that is simultaneously true and intimate, corrective and loving. Vatican II's Gaudium et Spes §16 reinforces this: conscience must always seek and speak the truth, for "the more a correct conscience prevails, the more do persons and groups turn aside from blind choice."

These four verses confront the contemporary Catholic with a specific and uncomfortable question: in which areas of life am I calling the wicked "righteous"? This may manifest as a parent who refuses to name a child's destructive behavior, a Catholic professional who flatters a powerful colleague's unethical decisions, a priest who softens homilies to avoid discomfort, or a parishioner who never offers fraternal correction for fear of social friction. Proverbs does not counsel harshness — the kiss of verse 26 forbids that — but it does insist that love without truth is not love at all; it is a form of abandonment.

Practically, a Catholic reader might apply this passage by examining their participation in "cultures of flattery" — workplaces, families, or even parish communities where honesty has been sacrificed to comfort. The passage also challenges a distinctly modern instinct to equate affirmation with compassion. True compassion, rooted in caritas, sometimes looks like the honest judge of verse 25: it convicts, and in convicting, blesses. Frequent examination of conscience, the sacrament of confession (where the Church herself "convicts the guilty" with mercy), and the practice of seeking honest spiritual direction are concrete means by which this wisdom is lived.