This verse sits inside the saying about dining with a ruler, Proverbs 23:1–3.
Quick answer
The saying's famous shock line: if your appetite runs strong, restrain it as forcefully as holding a blade to your own throat. It is deliberate hyperbole about self-command in a setting where wanting too much makes you vulnerable.
Read the whole unit
Verses 1 through 3 form one scene at a ruler's table, where the food is "deceptive" and the guest's appetite is the lever a shrewd host can pull. The knife image belongs to that scene; it is not a general command about eating.
Read the whole unit
The first saying in this chapter is a three-verse scene: a young man invited to a powerful man's table. The advice sounds strange until you see what the meal really is. In the ancient court, a ruler's hospitality was rarely free; the table was an instrument, and the delicacies were "deceptive food," a test or a purchase disguised as a dinner. The saying teaches appetite management as survival: consider carefully what is actually in front of you, restrain your hunger even to the point of the vivid knife-to-the-throat image, and do not crave what is designed to obligate you. The unit is not table manners; it is a warning that appetite makes a man easy to buy.
What this verse contributes
This verse supplies the unit's intensity. "Put a knife to your throat" is the sages at their most theatrical, and the exaggeration is the point: at this table, appetite is dangerous enough to warrant emergency measures. The phrase names the person it addresses honestly, "a man given to appetite," a man of strong desire. The saying does not shame him for having the appetite; it warns him that this is the exact room in which his appetite will be used against him.
Related: Proverbs 25:28 · Proverbs 16:32
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.