Hezekiah's Collection
If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. Proverbs 25:21 · Berean Standard Bible
When someone is hostile toward you, respond by meeting their basic needs—feed them if they're hungry, give them water if they're thirsty. You're breaking the cycle of conflict with simple human kindness.
In ancient Israel, tribal conflicts and personal feuds could last for generations. Most people would naturally avoid or harm an enemy, but Solomon is challenging his listeners to do something radical—to see an enemy's hunger as an opportunity to show character instead of settling a score. This would have felt counterintuitive to a culture oriented toward honor and retaliation.
Solomon, speaking as a wise observer of human nature and God's ways, likely teaching younger men about how to navigate conflicts without destroying themselves in the process.
This teaching echoes forward into Jesus's command to love your enemies and turn the other cheek, revealing that God's kingdom operates on a different economy than human revenge. It's part of the long biblical thread showing that breaking cycles of harm matters more than winning them.
Provide food and water to your enemy when they are in need, treating their basic human vulnerability with dignity rather than exploiting it.
This counsel emerges from the ancient Near Eastern context where hospitality was not merely custom but covenant obligation—even strangers and adversaries possessed the right to sustenance. The Solomonic court, like all royal centers, witnessed bitter rivalries and blood feuds; this proverb directly challenges the retaliatory impulse that would have been culturally normative. By the time of Second Temple Judaism, this teaching had become so central that the rabbis would cite it as exemplifying the principle of pikuach nefesh—the preservation of life transcends nearly all other obligations.
The wisdom tradition attributed to Solomon, though scholars recognize Proverbs 25 specifically belongs to a later editorial layer—the collection 'These also are proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out' (25:1), suggesting compilation during the eighth-century Judean court.
This principle anticipates Jesus's radical reorientation of enemy-love in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:43-48), where feeding the hungry becomes not strategic advantage but agapic overflow. The trajectory moves from prudential wisdom toward sacrificial love, though both scriptures share the conviction that genuine power consists in transcending reciprocal violence.
19Like a broken tooth or a foot out of joint is confidence in a faithless man in time of trouble.
20Like one who removes a garment on a cold day or vinegar poured on a wound is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.
21If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
22For in so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you.
23As the north wind brings forth rain, so a backbiting tongue brings angry looks.
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