Proverbs 21:10

Proverbs 21:10, in plain English

A wicked person's core desire is for evil, and that same brokenness means they treat their neighbors with contempt—nothing good comes from them.

Why it's here

Solomon is describing the inner life of someone who's given themselves over to wickedness. Their evil desires aren't compartmentalized; they poison every relationship because their neighbor finds no favor, no grace, in their eyes.

Who's speaking

Solomon, examining the character of the wicked.

Where it sits in the story

This is part of the larger biblical pattern where corruption starts in the heart and radiates outward. Jesus taught that from the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, and a wicked heart inevitably harms everyone around it.

The scholarly reading

The morally corrupt person harbors an appetite for evil itself, and this internal corruption expresses itself in a fundamental incapacity for goodwill toward others.

Language and setting

The verse identifies a psychological principle: wickedness is not merely external action but internal orientation—a positive craving (ʾāwâh, אוה) for what is harmful. Such a person cannot sustain the reciprocal goodwill that social order requires. Their neighbor experiences only hostility and neglect.

Voice

The wisdom teacher, analyzing the interior life of 'the wicked man' (rāšāʿ) and the way that internal corruption necessarily generates relational alienation. The phrase 'finds no favor' (lō yiḥpāṣ) suggests active indifference.

Significance

This analysis of wickedness as fundamental orientation rather than peripheral behavior becomes crucial to New Testament demonology and soteriology: Jesus's claim that 'out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks' (Matthew 12:34-35) depends on recognizing that moral transformation requires changing the orientation of the person, not merely external behavior.

8The way of a guilty man is crooked, but the conduct of the innocent is upright.

9Better to live on a corner of the roof than to share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

10The soul of the wicked man craves evil; his neighbor finds no favor in his eyes.

11When a mocker is punished, the simple gain wisdom; and when a wise man is instructed, he acquires knowledge.

12The Righteous One considers the house of the wicked and brings the wicked to ruin.

Read all of Proverbs 21 — The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever He will. Even power submits to providence.