137 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Midrash Mishlei, shown in source order. Page 3 of 3.
"Do you see a man skilled in his work? He shall stand before kings." Come and see, the midrash says, how perfectly this fits Solomon, who was skilled in the work of the Holy One, b...
(Proverbs 23:5) speaks to this feeling, saying, "When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings." But what does this really mean? One fascinating...
That feeling, amplified a thousandfold, is at the heart of our story today, drawn from the ancient wisdom of Midrash Mishlei, a collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book o...
Midrash Mishlei turns to The Rabbis Warn Against the Dangers of Wine. It starts with a verse from (Proverbs 23:29): "Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complainin...
"If you slacken in the day of trouble, your strength is small." The rabbis read this verse as a warning about Torah, and they read it three times over, each voice pressing on a dif...
"These also are for the wise: to show partiality in judgment is not good." Here, the midrash says, Solomon is speaking directly to the wise, warning the very people trusted to rend...
"I passed by the field of a lazy man, and by the vineyard of a man without sense." The midrash reads the neglected field as a portrait of the mind. Leave a field unplowed and unsow...
The men of Hezekiah, the editors who preserved the second half of Proverbs, were granted unusually long lives. Why? Because they refused to rush. They were the patient judges, the ...
Picture the sky thick with clouds, a wind kicking up, the whole world bracing for the downpour. And then nothing. The clouds scatter, the ground stays dry, and everyone who looked ...
This is one of those compact rabbinic readings that says everything in a breath. Solomon warns: you found honey, so eat your fill and then stop, because too much of even the sweete...
Solomon piles up three weapons in a single line: a heavy club, a drawn sword, a sharpened arrow. Then he names what they stand for. The man who bears false witness against his neig...
Solomon's instruction is hard to swallow: if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him water. Rabbi Hama bar Hanina presses on the wound to make sure we feel it. H...
Two verses sit side by side in Proverbs and flatly contradict each other. First: do not answer a fool according to his folly. Then, immediately: answer a fool according to his foll...
There is a kind of waste so complete that it turns a good deed inside out. Scripture warns against handing honor to a fool, and Rabbi Alexandrai sharpens the image into something a...
A person can wound without ever lifting a hand. Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon reads the proverb plainly. The one who sits and deceives a friend with cruel words is no different ...
You can hear a person's heart in his words, says Rabbi Zeira. The mouth may flatter while the heart plots murder, and Scripture preserves the proof. Haman bowed and schemed at once...
Why did Isaac give Esau so thin a blessing? The midrash pictures the moment the old father, ready to lavish abundance on his elder son, is suddenly stopped. The Divine Presence ans...
Self-praise has a sour taste, and Proverbs catches it in a single line. Let a stranger praise you, not your own mouth; let an outsider, not your own lips. Rabbi Avun reads it as a ...
Proverbs says iron sharpens iron, and the midrash hears in it the clash of two unbending wills: Moses and Pharaoh, trading words like blade against blade. Another reading hears Aar...
A fig tree does not give its fruit all at once. You water it through the dry months, you guard it from the goats, you wait through seasons that seem to give you nothing back. Then,...
Rabbi Chanina catches a problem in the verse before most readers notice one. "As in water face reflects face," Scripture says. But water has no face of its own. So whose face does ...
The midrash turns a verse of practical shepherding into a prayer. "Know well the faces of your flock, set your heart to the herds," Proverbs tells the farmer. But the sages hear Is...
Two brothers, one womb, two destinies. The midrash hangs Proverbs' contrast directly on Jacob and Esau. Jacob is the poor man who walks in his integrity, the one whose worth is mea...
The verse is blunt: turn your ear away from Torah, and even your prayer becomes loathsome. Rav Huna sharpens the why. It is not about ignorance, since a person can simply not have ...
One verse, four sets of faces. Proverbs contrasts the man who is wise in his own eyes with the poor man whose understanding sees clean through him, and the midrash tries the verse ...
There is a kind of admission that changes nothing. A person says the words, lists the wrong, even feels the sting of it, and then walks back into the very life that produced the wr...
The plain proverb sounds like advice for a farmer. Tend your field and you will have bread on the table. The midrash hears it as advice for a soul. The land a person is meant to wo...
Rabbi Akiva reads the proverb as a flat exchange with no fine print. Give to the poor and you will lack nothing. Close your eyes to them and the curses pile up. But he knew the exc...
One verse, two kinds of judge. Rav Nahman bar Yitzhak hears the proverb as a portrait of who should sit on the bench, and he draws the line with a single contrast: the king and the...
The opening of Proverbs 30 reads like the byline of a stranger, the words of Agur son of Yakeh. The midrash insists the stranger is Solomon himself, and it pries each name open lik...
Proverbs asks a question that sounds unanswerable. Who has gone up to heaven and come back down, gathered the wind in his fists, bound the waters in a garment, set up the very ends...
King Solomon, in the persona of Agur, prays a strange prayer. He asks God for exactly two things: keep lies far from me, and give me neither poverty nor wealth, only my measured po...
The verse paints a grotesque little creature: a leech with two daughters, and both have only one word in their mouths. "Give, Give." Why the doubling? Why does the cry repeat? Rabb...
Solomon admits the limits of his own famous wisdom. Three things baffle him, four he simply cannot grasp. The list reads like riddles. The eagle climbing into open sky leaves no tr...
The proverb names the things that make the very ground shudder. Among them is the spectacle of a servant raised up to be king, and a maidservant who pushes aside the mistress she o...
Instead, it sees these tiny creatures as symbols – powerful metaphors for…empires. Yes, empires! Buckle up. First, we have the ant: "Ants are a folk without power, and yet they pre...
Solomon lists four creatures that walk with majesty: the fearless lion, the strutting greyhound, the he-goat, the king secure among his people. The sages read this parade as a prop...
The story of King Solomon and the Daughter of Pharaoh, as told in Midrash Mishlei, is a potent reminder. It's a tale of celebration, misdirection, and a temple almost lost. Rabbi I...
"A woman of valor, who can find?" (Proverbs 31:10). It's a powerful opening to a beautiful poem. But what does it really mean? What does it point to? Midrash Mishlei, our text for ...
The Woman of Valor sails like a merchant fleet, bringing her bread from distant ports. Rabbi Shimon ben Chalafta reads her as the seeker of Torah. The lesson is blunt: if you will ...
The Midrash Mishlei, a collection of interpretations on the Book of Proverbs, takes that poem and runs with it. It's not just about one ideal woman, but about all the ways women. A...
