What Does Amos 5:13 Mean in the King James?
Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
In an evil time, silence can be prudence in action: wisdom sees what speech will meet.
THE MEANING
When evil sets the conditions around you, prudence can keep you silent because it recognizes the danger in the moment. The verse names the time as evil and the silence as a response to it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that wisdom must always speak publicly, whatever the cost.
THE ROOT
יִדֹּם
yiddom
GROWS FROM
דמם
damam
To be silent, become still, or cease.
English “keep silence” can sound like mere absence, but דמם also names stillness and waiting. The prudent silence here carries alert restraint: the voice falls quiet because it has read the moment.
ALSO GROWS
dom: Be still; wait quietly.
דּוֹם
The same root can describe silence as a deliberate stillness, giving the prudent person’s silence depth beyond simply saying nothing.
dumam: Quietly, without noise.
דּוּמָם
This branch joins quietness with waiting, echoing the restrained posture of the verse.
הַמַּשְׂכִּיל
hammaskil
GROWS FROM
שכל
sakal
To understand or act with insight and skill.
The word for the prudent person comes from a root that can describe understanding put into effective action. Here, discernment takes the form of silence because the person recognizes what kind of time this is.
ALSO GROWS
taskil: Act wisely; succeed through understanding.
תַּשְׂכִּיל
This form links wisdom with a fitting response, illuminating silence as an intentional act of discernment.
wayyaskil: Acted with success or skill.
וַיַּשְׂכִּל
The same root joins understanding to effective action, showing that prudence is more than knowing; it shapes what a person does.
THE PATTERN
When a setting makes speech dangerous or mistimed, wisdom can appear as silence.
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace.But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the high priest asked him, and said unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?THE THREAD
Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.The Hebrew root דמם (damam, “be silent” or “be still”) also appears in “Rest” and “wait patiently.” Amos’s silence can carry this sense of stillness, while Psalm 37 places that stillness before the LORD amid wickedness.
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