What Does Habakkuk 2:10 Mean in the King James?
Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.
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
The house built by cutting others down becomes the structure that wounds the builder’s own living self.
THE MEANING
The house you build carries the shame of the many people you cut off. That same act misses against your own living soul: what harms them also turns against the life within you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that you can secure your household by stripping life from others and remain untouched. The verse says the taking marks your house with shame and wounds your own living self.
THE ROOT
וְחֹטֵא
wə-ḥōṭēʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
To miss, miss the mark, or act wrongly.
“sinned” in this verse is wə-ḥōṭēʾ. The Hebrew root carries the sense of missing: the violence is a miss that turns against the one who commits it. The verse links harm to others with a wound to the actor’s own living self.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēt: Missing; a wrong or sin.
חֵטְא
This branch keeps the sense of a missed mark inside the word translated “sinned.”
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Missing or sin; in ritual use, an offering associated with the missing.
חַטָּאת
The shared root shows that “sinned” belongs to a wider family organized around missing, a connection English can hide.
יָעַצְתָּ
yāʿaṣtā
GROWS FROM
יעץ
y-ʿ-ṣ
To advise, deliberate, or plan.
“consulted” in this verse is yāʿaṣtā. The shame in this verse follows deliberation: it is planned into the household through the cutting off of many people. The root keeps counsel and planning connected to the outcome.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēṣāh: Counsel or plan.
עֵצָה
The shame is tied to a plan, not presented as an accidental consequence.
yōʿēṣ: Counselor or adviser.
יוֹעֵץ
The word family shows the deliberate counsel behind the act that harms the house.
נַפְשֶׁךָ
nap̄šeḵā
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-š
The living self; the related verb נָפַשׁ means to rest or be refreshed.
“Soul” here names the living person, not a detached part of the self. The verse makes that living self the one harmed by the violence used against others.
ALSO GROWS
nepeš: Living soul, person, or self.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word in the verse: the harm reaches the perpetrator’s own living self.
nāpaš: To rest or be refreshed.
נָפַשׁ
This related form keeps the root family connected to the condition of a living self.
THE PATTERN
What is secured through harm carries that harm back into the taker’s own life.
And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.Proverbs joins the same roots found here: חטא (ḥāṭāʾ, to miss) and נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, living soul). Habakkuk shows a house marked by violence; Proverbs makes the inward wound explicit.
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