Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits.
Proverbs 18.21
Disagree with someone, criticize his lifestyle, or question his choices and you might be accused of violence in present-day Western culture. “Words as violence” has become something of a trope for anyone who feels injured and wants to use the power of victim status to cancel another speaker.[1] While the “words as violence” weapon is overused by the thin-skinned narcissists in our culture, there is truth in the fact that words have power that can be used violently, even causing death. The apostle John sees the ascended Jesus, the Word of God, riding a white horse having a two-edged sword coming out of his mouth–words–to strike down the nations (Rev 19.13-16). Words can destroy. But words are equally powerful to give life. They can be used to instruct and encourage people to move in the right direction. Death and life are in the power of the tongue.
Solomon’s statement in Proverbs 18.21 is not hyperbole. Rather, his words are rooted deeply in God’s revelation of himself and his relationship with his creation. The many instructions that Solomon gives his son concerning speech in Proverbs are not the words of some self-help guru who is writing chaff about techniques to manipulate situations in your favor. The proverbs of Solomon concerning speech are the meditations of a wise theologian who understands the nature of the world in which we live and how best to align ourselves with the purpose of the Creator to complete the mission he has assigned us.
Speech has its origins in God himself. God speaks eternally. When we hear the conversation of God in the opening chapters of history, “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness” (Gen 1.26), this was part of a conversation that had been going on for eternity. We learn from the apostle John in his Gospel that “the Word is God;” that is, the second member of the Trinity who became flesh, is the Word (Jn 1.1, 14). The nature of God is speech. God is Father, Son, and Spirit, but he is also Speaker, Word, and Breath. Language and speech are not a bolted-on utilitarian tool that could easily be replaced with something else or a powerless representation of a deeper reality about the life of God. Language is a part of the nature and, thus, the life of God. God doesn’t exist without speech. God’s life is communication, language, speaking, and hearing.
This eternal language overflows into creation. Everything was created by the Word of God (see Heb 11.3; Pss 33.6; 148.5), a truth evident in the ten-fold “and God said” of Genesis 1. God’s Word not only initially created everything, but creation continues to be held together by God’s sustaining word (see Heb 1.3; also Col 1.17). We and our world are created and sustained by words. Words are the fabric of creation’s existence, the foundation and superstructure upon which everything else depends.
When God created man as his image, he gave him the power of speech, sharing God’s own life. Words are vital to life. We live and die by words. God speaks to us and we speak back to God, not as an incidental to life but as life itself. We speak to one another, not as incidental to life but as life itself. Words create, maintain, encourage growth, and destroy us as the image of God. Through our words, we fulfill or fall short of our life purpose of dominion.
Being able to speak and understand one another is vital to our God-given mission in the world. As God revealed to Adam, we can’t accomplish our mission alone. To live together and fulfill our purpose, we must live as the faithful images of God, which means, in part, that we must be able to communicate with one another. This truth was made plain in a negative fashion at Babel. As those at Babel were unified in language and lip (Gen 11.1), they were able to accomplish their diabolical dominion project. When God destroyed that project, he did so by confusing their language. God “killed” humanity at Babel, ripping them apart, by confusing their language.
Words can bind us together in an ever-growing relationship of peace and productivity, or words can rip us apart and make us unfruitful. God’s Word ultimately sustains everything to bring it to its purpose, but he has given us the power of words to shape the world at a creaturely level. What we say and how we say it matters. We either edify through our words (Eph 4.29) or we destroy. Death and life are truly in the power of the tongue.
Proverbs 18.21 is a solemn caution. You will eat the fruit of your words whether that be death or life. If you love to talk, be careful. You will eat the fruit of your words. Those conversations you have in which you are speaking quickly without thinking, those responses on social media, those articles that are written (!), those words that are spoken in love or hatred to your spouse, child, or friend, they will all have fruits of life or death that you will eat. So, choose your words carefully.
[1] For the development of how this came to its present expression, see Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020.
