The interpretation timeline

Prov 25:23

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

Prov 25:23 · Douay-Rheims

“The north wind driveth away rain, as doth a sad countenance a backbiting tongue.”

Patristic before A.D. 750

735

A.D.

Bede Patristic

A.D. 673–735

“"The north wind drives away rain," etc. If you listen with a cheerful face to a slanderer, you give him fuel for slandering; but if you listen with a gloomy face, as a certain man said, he will learn not willingly to say what he has learned is not willingly heard.”

Source

Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.