Open rebuke is better than secret love “He that takes an ingenuous liberty to tell others of their faults, and rebukes them freely, when need requires, to their face, is a better friend, a more valuable, though, perhaps, he may please less, than he who hath more of the passion of love in his heart, but makes it not known by such good effects. The parable, says Lord Bacon, reprehends the soft nature of such friends as will not use the privilege which friendship gives them, in admonishing their friends with freedom and confidence, as well of their errors as of their danger.” See Dodd. Faithful are the wounds The sharpest reproofs; of a friend They proceed from an upright, loving, and faithful heart, and really promote the good of the person reproved; but the kisses All the fair speeches and outward professions of friendship; of an enemy are deceitful Hebrew, נעתרות, are to be deprecated, are perfidious and pernicious, and therefore are such things as one may properly pray to God to be delivered from.
Related Commentaries of Proverbs 27:5
Proverbs 27:5-6
5 Open rebuke is better than secret love.
6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.c