“Better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting with strife…Better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting with strife” (Proverbs 17:1; Ecclesiastes 4:6).
Our world is a ceaseless cacophony of noise and busy-ness. A quiet nation—one free from war from its enemies and conflict among its citizens—is a blessed one (1 Chron. 22:9; 2 Chron. 14:1,5; 20:30). So, also, are a quiet home (Prov. 17:1) and a quiet spirit (Ecc. 4:6).
The Sabbath was designed by God to be a day of quiet (Luke 23:56). An Israelite’s week was to be full of six days of energetic toil, but the seventh was to be uneventful, quiet, and reflective (Ex. 20:8-11). The Sabbath authorized weekly permission for God’s people of the old covenant to “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).
Like Jesus, a wise and righteous life has a sufficient amount of quietness and time alone with God (Luke 5:16). Judas the Betrayer was able to deliver Jesus to the wicked rulers of Jerusalem because he knew Christ’s habit of meeting His apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane, a quiet place away from the hustle and bustle of the temple and city of Jerusalem (John 18:2ff). It was a location which provided Jesus and His apostles the opportunity to pray and reflect (Mark 14:32, 38).
A wise and righteous woman seeks to cultivate the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit (1 Pet. 3:4). Not only is such a spirit very precious to God, it also is essential to a quiet home—a place of refuge for her family from a busy, drama-filled world. A home adorned with quiet, even if it dines daily on a handful of dry morsels, is better than a house full of feasting with no peace and quiet.
