Tag: Occupation of the Wise

What do you spend your time doing?

Commonplace –

“It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: but a man of understanding hath wisdom” (Proverbs 10:23).

What do you spend your time doing? Proverbs 10:23 is all about how we occupy our time. Solomon begins the Proverb with the occupation of fools: mischief! The fool’s occupation is then contrasted in the second half of the verse with the wise man, who has understanding.

In thinking about this topic, the phrase “whiling away the hours” came to mind, and I wasn’t sure if it was ‘whiling’ or ‘wiling’. The true phrase, the original idiom, is ‘whiling away the hours’, and it means ‘to pass the time pleasantly’. It turns out, though, a new twist on the old idiom is indeed ‘wiling away the hours’ with wiling referring to the word ‘wile’, which is all about deception, i.e. our fool’s mischief. This new phrase is considered an eggcorn. “An eggcorn is the alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements” (Wikipedia). Together, these two idioms, the old and new, actually are a great representation of verse 10:23, which could be rewritten: “Wiling away the hours versus whiling away the hours”. Are your spending your time in deception and mischief or passing the time pleasantly, doing something good?

Here is Matthew Henry’s summary of Proverbs 10:23:

“Besides the future recompence, a good man has as much present pleasure in the restraints and exercises of religion as sinners can pretend to in the liberties and enjoyments of sin, and much more, and much better” (694).

Works Cited

Henry, Matthew. “Proverbs .” Matthew Henry’s Commentary On the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition. Volume 3 and Volume 6, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., March 1996.

Holy Bible: Giant Print with Study Aids. Dugan Publishers, Inc., 1984.

Wikipedia contributors. “Eggcorn.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 19 Dec. 2025. Web. 12 Jan. 2026.

© 2025 Angela Hormberg