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Here we read a proverb that offers both an earthly instruction about malicious gossip. Those who come with insinuations, revealing secrets, whispering and back stabbing while their supposed friends are not present are like a fire that burns all good thoughts and peace. Their twisted goal is very often to sow discord and distance one from another. Likewise in Proverbs 16 we read:
"An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire. A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends." (Proverbs 16:27,28).
Talebarers get some type of sick enjoyment from seperating intimate friends. The whisperer should not be tolerated; they should be avoided and left to take their actions of trying to bring jealous, dislike, or old fables among individuals elsewhere. A true friend does not act in this manner, so by making the gossip depart one is not losing a friend but creating an environment of peace, forgiveness and unity. This is a serious lesson that is taught not only in Proverbs, but through the entire Bible; for example in the New Testament we also see it condemned in 2 Corinthians:
"Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you? we speak before God in Christ: but we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying. For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest there be debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults: And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed." (2 Corinthians 12: 19-21).
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