Even pounding cannot remove folly from a fool who has fully embraced it.
Solomon writes a blunt proverb about the unteachable fool in Proverbs 27:22: Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his folly will not depart from him (v. 22). The image is extreme.
The picture is from food preparation: Pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle. Grain is pounded in a mortar to break it open. The verse imagines a fool subjected to the same treatment.
Yet his folly will not depart from him. Even pounding does not remove the folly. Solomon's image is figurative rather than literal: no measure, however severe, can extract folly from a man who has fully refused wisdom. The folly has lodged so deep that it has become his substance. Solomon's earlier verses said discipline can train a child away from folly (Proverbs 22:15), but the man who has fully embraced folly into adulthood has passed beyond what external pressure can accomplish. This can be compared to Jeremiah 13:23, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" The verse marks the limit of correction and points implicitly toward the deeper transformation that only the LORD can produce.
Proverbs 27:22
22 Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain,
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Proverbs 27:22 meaning
Solomon writes a blunt proverb about the unteachable fool in Proverbs 27:22: Though you pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with crushed grain, yet his folly will not depart from him (v. 22). The image is extreme.
The picture is from food preparation: Pound a fool in a mortar with a pestle. Grain is pounded in a mortar to break it open. The verse imagines a fool subjected to the same treatment.
Yet his folly will not depart from him. Even pounding does not remove the folly. Solomon's image is figurative rather than literal: no measure, however severe, can extract folly from a man who has fully refused wisdom. The folly has lodged so deep that it has become his substance. Solomon's earlier verses said discipline can train a child away from folly (Proverbs 22:15), but the man who has fully embraced folly into adulthood has passed beyond what external pressure can accomplish. This can be compared to Jeremiah 13:23, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" The verse marks the limit of correction and points implicitly toward the deeper transformation that only the LORD can produce.