“One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.”
Proverbs 27:7 ESV

Sometimes a biblical truth takes time and effort to understand.

If you’ve ever read something in Scripture and wondered what it meant, or had trouble really understanding it, you’re not alone! I think we’ve all been there. And you know what? It’s a totally normal – and even good – place to be. There will always be more to understand! That’s one of the beautiful things about God’s Word: we can never get to the end of it. We can always grasp it more deeply. And no matter how much we study and how much we learn, it will never get boring! In fact, it just keeps getting more and more exciting and more and more beautiful.

Proverbs is full of verses that are great examples of that.

I try to read through Proverbs every month, one chapter each day. I’ve found this habit to be very fruitful, and I highly recommend it! But when I started, I remember being a little overwhelmed. There was a lot that I knew I wasn’t grasping. But as I kept reading and revisiting each chapter, I started making connections both within the book of Proverbs and with other parts of Scripture. I started having light bulb moments and realizing what things meant. More and more started making sense as I kept going – and it’s always so exciting to grasp more truth and see more of the beauty in God’s Word!

So even if what you read seems difficult to understand at first, whether in Proverbs or in any part of Scripture, I encourage you to keep going with it. Take what you do understand and apply that, and keep pondering the rest. Ask the Lord for help, and you’ll be amazed at how He provides and grows your understanding!

The verse above, Proverbs 27:7, is one that used to leave me hanging. It’s obviously a metaphor for spiritual things, but I knew I wasn’t really getting it. I came to understand the literal meaning some time ago, but I knew I wasn’t fully comprehending the spiritual application. But as I’ve reviewed and considered this verse each month over the past year or so, the spiritual meaning has gradually become clear as well. I’d love to share what I’ve learned with you.

With metaphors, of course, we have to understand the literal meaning before we can apply it to spiritual things. So, first things first:

What is the literal meaning of Proverbs 27:7?

“One who is full loathes honey…”

As someone who has always enjoyed sugar too much, it took me a long time to even really grasp this first part. “One who is full loathes honey.” Huh? Could anyone ever be that full? As a child, I frequently poured honey straight into my mouth from the handy squeeze bottle. I ate spoonfuls of sugar from the sugar bowl (and I always wanted another). My favorite part of my bowl of Corn Flakes was the sugary sludge at the bottom of the bowl, and I made sure to add extra sugar (plus a bit) so I’d get to enjoy that. I’m not sure I ever felt “full” of anything sweet. 

I’m thankful to say that as an adult I did finally reach the point where a sweet treat could be too sweet or even start tasting bad after a certain amount. Now, I can fill up on a nourishing meal and find that dessert isn’t even appealing. Once that happened, this part finally made sense – yes, okay, when I’m full, I can actually get to the point where I truly don’t want any more of my delicious dessert. When I’m full, I can even loathe honey.

“…but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.”

This second part took a while for me to appreciate, too. 

I think part of my problem was that I was too rarely actually hungry. To my shame, I snacked and grazed and ate often enough through most of my young adult life that I almost never experienced the feeling of hunger. I kept myself full – on junk, sad to say. I was a very picky eater (especially when it came to healthy things), but I was also a planner, so I hardly ever let myself get hungry, and I hardly ever had to deal with eating things I didn’t particularly like. (Yes, “spoiled” is a suitable adjective here.)

I remember the first time I experienced a “bitter” thing tasting “sweet.” I was 41 weeks pregnant with my first baby, and my doctor had sent me across the hall at the hospital for an ultrasound to make sure the little guy was still doing okay in there (thankfully, he was). The wait was significant, I hadn’t had lunch, I didn’t have food with me, I was 41 weeks pregnant, and it didn’t take long for me to start feeling pretty ravenous. 

Now, hospital food for a picky eater? As you might imagine, that was not generally my favorite thought, but there came a point where I was ready to eat just about anything anyone would put in front of me! The kind nurse brought me a turkey and cheese sandwich on white bread – something I would normally have (hopefully politely) declined. I didn’t eat white bread (it gets stuck to the roof of your mouth!). I didn’t like cheese on my turkey sandwich (it tastes too strong!). And what if there was mustard? (Eww!) (…Yes, again, I was quite spoiled. I don’t argue.) But in that hungry moment, I had absolutely no inclination to turn up my nose at that beautiful food. 

And let me tell you, I had never enjoyed a sandwich as much as I enjoyed that one! Not even the honey-wheat, mayo-not-mustard, no-cheese sandwiches that I’d make for myself with just the right kind of turkey. Younger me would be shocked to learn that I now totally enjoy both cheese and mustard on turkey sandwiches, and I’m perfectly satisfied with white bread. That formerly “bitter” food has become “sweet” to my taste.

I’ve had a few such experiences since then (salad and chicken legs spring to mind), and so Proverbs 27:7 definitely makes sense to me now in terms of physical food. When we’re full, even sweet things can seem repugnant. And when we’re truly hungry, even things we don’t like are welcome and taste good.

But what is the spiritual significance?

Here’s our verse again, just to keep it fresh in our minds:

One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.
Proverbs 27:7 ESV

In order to understand the spiritual truth God is revealing in Proverbs 27:7, I started asking questions. First, given that this verse talks about being full and being hungry, I asked a general question: 

What are we supposed to be hungry for, spiritually speaking?

Some well-known words of Jesus came to mind. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6 ESV) Right! Of course, we are supposed to be spiritually hungry (and thirsty) for righteousness. 

A few cross-references and quick searches provided more: we should also hunger and thirst for God Himself. In John 6:35, Jesus calls Himself our sustenance: “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (ESV) The first part of Psalm 42:2 indicates a proper thirst for God Himself: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God”. Psalm 143:6 and Psalm 63:1 show the same thirst for God. And in Isaiah 55:1-3, God calls His thirsty and destitute people to come to Him and be satisfied in Him and His words as with wine, milk, and rich food (read more about that passage here). 

Okay, so that makes sense! We are to spiritually hunger and thirst for – to recognize our deep need for and dependence on – the true righteousness He offers to us through Jesus, God Himself, and His Word (which includes His instructions on living righteously).

Just like we have a true physical need for nutritious food in order for our bodies to live and be nourished and healthy, we have a true spiritual need for righteousness, for relationship with our Creator, and for all that He’s revealed in His Word in order to be spiritually healthy and have true, abundant, and eternal life.

So now that we know what truly nourishes us spiritually, let’s go back to the first part of our verse: “One who is full loathes honey…”

What does it mean to be full and loathe honey spiritually?

While the volume of actual honey and sugar I used to eat was not healthy for my physical body, honey in Scripture is almost always described as a good thing. The Promised Land flowed with milk and honey (Deuteronomy 6:3). Manna tasted like cakes made with honey (Exodus 16:31). Honey was considered valuable and was even given as a gift to honor others (Genesis 43:11).

Throughout Scripture, honey is often used as an analogy for the goodness of the wisdom God offers us through His Word. Here are a few examples:  

“My son, eat honey, for it is good,
and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.
Know that wisdom is such to your soul;
if you find it, there will be a future,
and your hope will not be cut off.”
Proverbs 24:13-14 ESV

Speaking of the words of God, David says,

More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
Psalm 19:10 ESV

And in Psalm 119, the psalmist proclaims, 

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Psalm 119:103 ESV

In these passages and many others, honey represents the goodness and high value of God’s wisdom, which He offers us freely in His Word. 

“One who is full loathes honey” is telling us that, spiritually, we can be “full” of something that would cause us to loathe – to reject, to scorn, to refuse to “eat” or partake of – the wisdom of God. What could do that? I think there are several possible answers.

For starters, we can be full of our own “wisdom” (see Proverbs 3:5-8 and this post), full of our own desires (2 Timothy 4:3-4), full of ourselves (2 Timothy 3:2-5). I would argue that this is our default posture, actually, and it takes determined effort to avoid it. Our human disposition is pride – we tend to think of ourselves as already having what we need, as being able to figure it out, as being inherently good and empowered and “enough.” We think we don’t need God or His wisdom. We want to do things our way. We want to be in charge.

Even if we do recognize that we need something outside of ourselves, we can numb our hunger and deny our need for God by filling ourselves up on spiritual junk food, just like I used to do with sugary snacks. Spiritual junk food can take many forms across a wide spectrum.

Those who reject the one true God often try to fill themselves with some sort of spirituality; we see this in all the other religions and “spiritual” claims of the world. They may even think they’re satisfied, even though they’re not really getting the true spiritual nourishment that comes only from our Creator. They’ve filled themselves with something, but that something can’t give them true spiritual nourishment and life. Only God can do that, through Jesus (John 14:6).

Even among Christians, we often search for spiritual satisfaction in all kinds of things outside of what God has revealed of Himself in Scripture, which He says is sufficient to teach us all we need to know about Him and how to live (see 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and this post). We are easily swayed into judging things by how they make us feel, whether they seem helpful, or how enjoyable they are (just like my sugary sludge) instead of taking the time to study God’s Word to see what’s truly good according to Him. 

We may even, with or without realizing it, try to mix occult or new thought or new age or other religions’ beliefs into our faith – by using the Enneagram, for example, or affirmations, or karma, or eastern meditation practices, etc. Instead of defining terms like “love” and “justice” and “sin” the way God does in His Word, we may decide to go with whatever makes the most sense to us (and to our culture), which could lead us right into Progressive “Christianity” (which isn’t Christianity at all). We may think we’re satisfied with Christian-sounding catchphrases and quotable Bible verses, not realizing how often those are actually unbiblical or taken out of context, their meanings twisted and misleading, “filling us up” with untrue beliefs.

We can feel “full” but actually be spiritually malnourished, foolishly imagining we don’t need what God offers us in Scripture – which should be sweeter and more precious to us than any other thing.

God’s wisdom is infinite and endless. We can never learn it all, of course, we can never grasp it all – but we can learn and grasp more. And He calls us to do just that. We need to make sure we are choosing to hunger and thirst after righteousness and after God Himself, satisfying our need for spiritual nourishment through His Word rather than foolishly supposing that we don’t need the sweet-as-honey sustenance God offers. 

But wait…what’s this part about bitter things?

“…to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.”

God tells us very clearly that He will fill us when we hunger and thirst for righteousness and for Him…so how could that be bitter? God is good, and everything He does is good (Psalm 119:68). Psalm 107:9, one of my very favorite verses (in one of my very favorite Psalms), tells us God fills the hungry soul with good things. So how could it be bitter (even though it can taste sweet if we’re hungry enough) to “eat” the “food” of righteousness? How could anything God gives be bitter? I’ve wondered that for months, every time I’d read this chapter. 

And then it clicked. 

How does God make us righteous? How does He make us more like Himself? In one sense, of course, He does this – He justifies us – through Jesus as soon as we put our faith in Him (Romans 5:1). We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8). But He makes it clear through His Word that in another sense – in this life, still wrestling with our sinful flesh in the ongoing process of sanctification – He continually makes us more like Himself through difficulties. He uses discipline, trials, and challenges to grow us and bring about righteousness in our lives. And those things do so often feel bitter, do they not?

The author of Hebrews tells us, 

“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Hebrews 12:11 ESV

Oh, isn’t that so true! All discipline seems painful – bitter – and not pleasant or sweet. But in reality, because of how God is using it, it is actually sweet – it brings about the peaceful fruit of righteousness! We who have a biblical perspective can remind ourselves of that when we face discipline that seems painful. It’ll be worth it. It’s always worth it to humble ourselves and submit to Him and His Word, even when it doesn’t feel good in the moment. 

Proverbs mentions this, too, and gives us an additional perspective on the discipline of the Lord, and another reason to be glad in it:

My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
for the LORD reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 3:11-12 ESV

When we recognize that the Lord disciplines us specifically because He loves us, delights in us, even, like a good earthly father who disciplines his son for all the right reasons – to see him grow and prosper, to help him avoid future pain, to train him so that he makes good decisions in the future that benefit him and others – when we trust Him and the purpose of that discipline, we can see it as a good thing, a loving thing, a sweet thing, even when it feels bitter in the moment. (And we can make the choice to learn from it, so hopefully we’ll need less of that discipline in the future!)

Of course, not all difficulty we experience is discipline from the Lord. Much of it is the fallout from other people’s sin, and much is just because we live in a sin-stained, fallen world, where even creation is groaning in bondage to sin and corruption (see Romans 8:19-23 – but do read more, before and after! Such an awesome chapter!). But even these bitter things, God uses to bring about righteousness in us – which means that even the hard things can be, and ought to be, if we’re thinking biblically, sweet to our taste. James tells us we can even rejoice in them!

“Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.”
James 1:2-3 CSB

The “bitter things” of trials and tests and challenges, of discipline and struggles and suffering and affliction, of “weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities” (2 Corinthians 12:10) are made sweet when we realize, recognize, and dwell on the fact that God is using them to make us righteous, to bring us closer to Himself. When we hunger for righteousness and for Him more than for our own selfish delights, more than for our own comfort and ease, more even than for any other good thing, then we will see the true value of anything that He uses to accomplish that purpose.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV

Oh, friend, if we truly hunger after righteousness, after God Himself, and if we believe what He tells us about how He will use the hardships of our lives to build that righteousness in us, then, yes, we can take joy in our suffering – then, yes, everything bitter will be sweet. Because God truly is just that good.

There are many more passages in Scripture that give us this same encouragement and hope through hard times: Romans 5:1-5, Romans 8:18-39, 2 Corinthians 4:7-5:1, and 1 Peter 4:12-13, just to name a few. Take some time to read and contemplate these passages. Memorize them, even. And go to them when things feel bitter in your life, and remind yourself that your good Creator is using those very things to make you more like Him.

Conclusion

“One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.”
Proverbs 27:7 ESV

As we look at the full verse once more, I hope it makes more sense to you now! God means for us to be filled and nourished by the goodness He offers, which is the only thing that will truly satisfy us and truly give us abundant life – even when it doesn’t seem up front like something desirable.

One who is full of the things of this world doesn’t even want the sweet, nourishing things God offers. But for the one who is hungry – the one who knows just how much he or she needs the infinite wisdom and righteousness of our good Creator and King – everything He offers us is sweet, even those difficult things that would naturally seem bitter to us.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28 NIV

God works for our good in all things – ALL things – if we love Him (which includes valuing Him and His Word and submitting ourselves to His authority and wisdom) and are called according to His purpose (and Jesus said He would draw everyone to Himself, so friend, you are called). We can trust Him, even through the hardest of circumstances. He is all and only good, and He can use even the very worst situation to bring about truly good things. He can redeem and make useful every hard thing in your life. He is trustworthy.

Choose to see the value in what God offers you – a relationship with Himself, wisdom for flourishing, true righteousness and full satisfaction – and hunger after that. Make your relationship with Him and your time in His Word a priority in your life. Take in the nourishment He provides. Believe what He says. And remember that everything He does and gives and allows will be used for your good, even when it doesn’t seem good in the moment, because He is just that good.

Then, indeed, because of the infinite goodness of our God, every bitter thing will be sweet.

More wisdom from Proverbs: