Proverbs 25.4-5
“Take away the dross from the silver, and the smith has material for a vessel; take away the wicked from the presence of the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness.”
Silver is mined from the earth with other metals and isolated by refining processes. Silver must be refined numerous times to remove all the dross, which is the foreign matter and impurities. After the dross has been removed, the pure silver is then ready to be fashioned into a beautiful vessel, ornament, or jewelry.
The lesson here is that just as foreign matter and impurities corrupt silver, so do wicked people corrupt a government. For a king to have a productive and prosperous reign for the benefit of the nation, he must purge away all the dross of ambitious, evil, and foolish men.
Governments throughout history have struggled mightily in the face of this reality, usually without much success. Corrupt people are attracted to the power, prestige, and money that inevitably come along with government. And it seems that the level of corruption scales with the size and power of the government.
The Founding Fathers clearly understood this danger, warned about it constantly, and wrote into the U.S. Constitution a system of checks and balances that were intended to protect against the selfish and manipulative grifters who would inevitably find their way into government either through elected office, political appointment, or social influence.
It is very disheartening to see the extent to which America has deviated from the core principles of the Constitution and allowed government to grow into a massive, out-of-control bureaucracy that is dominated by toxic partisanship, deep corruption, and unimaginable fiscal irresponsibility.
Using the metaphor of this proverb, it is clear that because of all the “dross” in our government, it no longer operates as the vessel it was designed to be by the Founders. The future of country depends on a very serious refining of government. The dross must be removed.
