Proverbs 21:24

Proverbs 21:24, in plain English

The person who is arrogant and mocking is recognized by a simple name: someone who has let pride completely take over their character.

Why it's here

Solomon is identifying a specific type of person he sees destroying themselves—not the quietly proud, but the openly contemptuous mocker who ridicules others and refuses correction. This kind of person was a danger to community harmony.

Who's speaking

Solomon, characterizing the destructive nature of unchecked pride

Where it sits in the story

Throughout Proverbs, the mocker appears as the opposite of the wise person—someone unteachable and headed for ruin. This connects to Jesus's warning about those who mock and reject truth; there's a spiritual reality to it that goes beyond mere personality flaw.

The scholarly reading

The person characterized by arrogance and boundless pride is fundamentally defined by mockery—a disposition that ridicules constraint, wisdom, and the limits imposed by mortality and divine order.

Language and setting

The Hebrew *zed* (arrogant/presumptuous one) represents not merely social rudeness but metaphysical rebellion—a refusal to acknowledge the hierarchies and boundaries that sustain creation. The 'mocker' (*letz*) specifically dismisses the wisdom tradition itself, treating serious moral instruction as material for contempt.

Voice

The sages, defending the very legitimacy of their pedagogical enterprise against the sophistic challenger who claims that conventional wisdom is mere restraint imposed by the weak.

Significance

This vice appears throughout Proverbs as the antithesis of the fear of the Lord; it prefigures the Psalmist's denunciation of the fool who 'says in his heart there is no God' (Psalm 14:1)—a spiritual posture that biblical theology traces to the serpent's mockery of God's word in Genesis 3:1.

22A wise man scales the city of the mighty and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust.

23He who guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from distress.

24Mocker is the name of the proud and arrogant man— of him who acts with excessive pride.

25The craving of the slacker kills him because his hands refuse to work.

26All day long he covets more, but the righteous give without restraint.

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.