Proverbs 25:23

The angry countenance belongs to the person who is the target of the backbiting (slanderous) tongue. Sly words can infuriate people just as a northerly wind brings rain. These are inevitable results.

"An untimely, icy blast of rain from the north takes the farmer aback and ruins his crop (cf. Proverbs 26:1; Proverbs 28:3). So also the unaware victim, when he hears the slander, realizes that the benefits he was about to reap from his work are suddenly ruined." [Note: Waltke, The Book . . . 31, p. 333.]