What Does Ecclesiastes 10:8 Mean?
Whoever digs a pit falls into it, and whoever breaks through a wall, a serpent bites him.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.THE KEY
The trap you dig and the boundary you break become the path through which danger reaches you.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks of actions that create their own exposure: the pit receives the one who digs it, and breaking the hedge leaves the breaker open to a serpent’s bite. The danger returns along the path the person has made.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a trap or breach can be made safely from outside its consequences; the one who makes the opening stands within reach of what it releases.
THE ROOT
יִשְּׁכֶנּוּ
yishshĕkhennû
GROWS FROM
נשך
n-sh-kh
to bite; the same root also names interest or usury, a taking that extracts.
The verb translated “bite” belongs to the same root as נֶשֶׁךְ (neshekh, interest or usury). That word-family lets the serpent’s physical bite and a painful extraction sit together, sharpening the danger that follows the broken boundary.
ALSO GROWS
nashakh: to bite
נָשַׁךְ
This is the action the serpent carries out against the one who breaks through the hedge.
neshekh: interest or usury
נֶשֶׁךְ
This branch names a taking that extracts, echoing the bite as harm that reaches and costs the exposed person.
פֹּרֵץ
pōrēts
GROWS FROM
פרץ
p-r-ts
to break through, burst out, or make a breach.
“breaks through a wall” in this verse is pōrēts. The verb pictures a breach through an enclosure, not simply damage to an object. The bite follows the opening: the person who forces the boundary is exposed where it has been broken.
ALSO GROWS
pārats: to break through or burst out
פָּרַץ
It names the forceful opening that turns the hedge from protection into a breach.
pérets: a breach or break
פֶּרֶץ
This noun makes the opening itself visible as the point where what was contained can now reach the breaker.
חֹפֵר
ḥōp̄ēr
GROWS FROM
חפר
ḥ-p-r
to dig or excavate.
“diggeth” in this verse is ḥōp̄ēr. The fall is not presented as random misfortune: the digger’s own work creates the cavity that receives him. The word-family keeps the action and its consequence joined in one image.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāpar: to dig or excavate
חָפַר
This is the action that creates the pit named in the verse.
ḥăp̄îrāh: digging or excavation
חֲפִירָה
This noun names the work that makes the opening into which the digger falls.
THE PATTERN
An act that opens a path for harm can return its consequence to the one who made it.
He digs a pit and hollows it out, and falls into the pit he works. His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
You shall not lend to your brother at usury, usury of silver, usury of food, usury of anything that is lent at usury.The Hebrew root נשך (n-sh-kh, “bite”) appears in Ecclesiastes for the serpent’s bite and in Deuteronomy for “usury.” The shared word-family lets the physical strike and an extracting cost occupy the same image of being bitten.
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