Proverbs 17:3 (BSB)

A crucible for silver and a furnace for gold, but the LORD is the tester of hearts.

From Proverbs 17. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Proverbs 17:3

• Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Proverbs 17:3: Note, 1. The hearts of the children of men are subject, not only to God's view, but to his judgment: As the fining-pot is for silver, both to prove it and to improve it so the Lord tries the hearts; he searches whether they are standard or no, and those that are he refines and makes purer, Jer 17:10.
• John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Proverbs 17:3: The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold,.... Refiners of silver have their fining pots, in which they purify the silver from the dross; and goldsmiths have their crucibles to melt and purify their gold, by which assays of the worth and value of it may be made; but the Lord trieth the hearts; there is no vessel, as Gersom observes, in...
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (Reformed), Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible on Proverbs 17:3: God only knows, as He tries (Psa 12:6; Psa 66:10) the heart.
• Keil & Delitzsch (Lutheran), Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament on Proverbs 17:3: Pro 17:3 3 The fining-pot for silver, and the furnace for gold; And a trier of hearts is Jahve. An emblematical proverb, which means that Jahve is for the heart what the smelting-pot (from צרף, to change, particularly to melt, to refine) is for silver, and what the smelting furnace (כוּר, from כּוּר, R.