Part of the three portraits of destructive men, Proverbs 16:27–29.
Quick answer
The whisperer is a farmer of conflict: he sows strife like seed, and his masterpiece is separating even the best of friends.
Read both lines
His most effective tool is not the shout but the whisper: confidential, flattering, unfalsifiable, "I probably shouldn't say this, but..." The whisperer attacks trust itself, the load-bearing element of friendship, in a register that sounds like intimacy. The best of friends have survived arguments, distance, and disaster; what they cannot survive is believing a quiet report about each other. The book gives the countermeasure at 26:20: where there is no talebearer, strife ceases. The fire goes out when someone stops carrying wood.
Related: Proverbs 26:20–22 · Proverbs 17:9
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.