Words That Burn Like a Scorching Fire! Proverbs 16:27

A worthless man digs up evil, While his words are like scorching fire. Proverbs 16:27

There are those who seem to love digging up dirt on others. These are the ones who love gossip and betrayal and slander. But such a man is a very wicked man. The proverb for today says that a "worthless" man is the one who digs up evil. That word "worthless" is the term, "beliyal" in the Hebrew and it means someone who is a scoundrel and who has no good in himself. This man plots to find and to expose evil in others.

We are told that when this wicked man gets the right information to slander and destroy others, he lets it forth in a belching flame of fire. He scorches the earth with his inflamatory language with every intent on destroying his adversaries and causing their reputation to go up in the flames of his evil rhetoric. The term used here are that his words are like scorching fire. The literal is that his lips burn like an uncontrolable fire. We are warned agaisnt such things in  James 3:6 where we read,

"So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. James 3:5-6

This is why we need to set a guard over our lips and our mouths. Our tongues are a fire themselves and can be the very world of iniquity. If we do not learn how to control our tongues we may learn all too late that our tongues can defile our entire lives and be set on fire by hell itself. That is why we need to make sure that we use our tongues for good rather than for wickedness. May God take our tongues and tame them by His Spirit so that, rather than being a scorching fire set abaze by hell itself - we become one whose words are a healing balm from the Lord Himself!