“The lips of the wise disperse knowledge: but the heart of the foolish doeth not so.”
My Notes
What Does Proverbs 15:7 Mean?
"The lips of the wise disperse knowledge: but the heart of the foolish doeth not so." Wise people spread knowledge through their speech — they "disperse" (zarah — scatter, sow, broadcast) it the way a farmer scatters seed. The distribution is generous and intentional. The foolish person's heart, by contrast, doesn't produce knowledge because the interior (heart) lacks what the exterior (lips) would need to distribute. You can't scatter what you don't have.
The contrast is between lips and heart — the wise person's output (speech) is rich because their interior (wisdom stored over years) has been accumulated. The foolish person's heart has nothing to distribute because nothing was stored.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What have you been storing in your heart that your lips can disperse as knowledge?
- 2.Where is your speech abundant but empty — volume without value?
- 3.How do you accumulate wisdom over time so your conversations have substance to scatter?
- 4.Who in your life disperses knowledge generously — and what makes their speech valuable?
Devotional
The wise scatter knowledge. They broadcast it. Everywhere they go, truth falls like seed from a sower's hand — in conversation, in counsel, in casual comments that turn out to carry more weight than the speaker realized. Their lips are a distribution system for what their heart has stored.
The heart of the foolish doesn't do this. Not because the foolish person can't talk — they often talk more than anyone. But their heart has nothing stored. No accumulated wisdom. No refined understanding. No years of observation and reflection distilled into reliable truth. Their speech is abundant but empty. Volume without value.
The wise person's lips disperse. The word means to scatter, to sow, to broadcast widely. This isn't hoarding knowledge for a select few. It's generous distribution — dropping wisdom into every conversation, every relationship, every situation that needs it. The wise don't guard their knowledge. They give it away, trusting that scattered seed eventually produces a harvest.
The foolish person's heart doesn't do this — and the reason is the heart, not the lips. The lips can only distribute what the heart has accumulated. If you've spent years storing nothing — no Scripture, no observation, no reflection, no correction absorbed and metabolized — your lips have nothing to scatter. You can talk all day and never disperse knowledge because the warehouse is empty.
The wise person's life is a years-long accumulation project. Every book read, every mistake processed, every correction received, every lesson observed — all of it goes into the heart's warehouse. And the lips, when they speak, draw from that warehouse and disperse what's been stored. The distribution is only as rich as the accumulation. Store much, scatter much. Store nothing, scatter nothing.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
The lips of the wise disperse knowledge,.... Scatter it about for the benefit of others; they are communicative and…
Not so - The word translated “so” is taken by some in its etymological force as “strong,” “firm,” and the passage is…
This is to the same purport with Pro 15:2, and shows what a blessing a wise man is and what a burden a fool is to those…
doeth not so So R.V. text, with the alternative in the marg. is not stedfast, or right. Maurer, however, renders…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture