If someone asks me for advice or is seeking an answer to something in their heart and mind I find joy when I answer. According to this proverb everyone does. Whether my answer is good or bad, true or false, right or wrong, timely or not doesn’t matter. I am still happy to reply. The joy is because this act of respect pumps my ego.
However, this verse gives me advice in its second half. “How good is a timely word!” The original Hebrew “dabar et tob orah” (a transliteration) literally means “word time good way”. My reaction to a request for assistance should be to give the right words at the right time. So how is a person like me who isn’t as wise as Solomon to know what good word to reply and when to say it? Ask the Lord like Solomon did! Isaiah 50:4 says, “The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.” After asking the Lord as Solomon did I am to receive instruction from the Lord. This is why I do BDBD ever since I became a Christian in the mid-1980s to this very day.
