The word ‘harshly’ (qāšāh) is well chosen: it is from the same root as ‘heavy’ and ‘hard’ (haqqāšāh, hiqšāh) in v. 4; Solomon burdened his subjects with heavy labour, while here Rehoboam his son treats them harshly with the utterances of his mouth. Moreover, ‘harshly’ is the opposite of ‘softly’, advised by the book of Proverbs as the correct behaviour in time of anger (Prov. 15.1; 25.15).
