What Does Proverbs 1:18 Mean in the King James?
And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.
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 repeated “their own” reveals that the people setting the ambush become its target.
THE MEANING
The violence they conceal already threatens their own blood and living selves. The verse shows the trap turning inward through the very acts meant to harm another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you can set harm in motion against others without putting yourself in its path.
THE ROOT
יֶאֱרֹבוּ
ye’erovu
GROWS FROM
ארב
ʾ-r-b
To lie in wait; to ambush.
“lay wait” in this verse is ye’erovu. The verb names a deliberate ambush, while the verse makes the ambushers’ own blood its object. The repeated possessive turns the hidden attack back toward the people who set it.
ALSO GROWS
ʾorev: An ambusher.
אֹרֵב
It names the person who watches for an opening, making the verse’s inward turn explicit: the ambusher’s own life is exposed.
ma’arav: A concealed attack.
מַאֲרָב
The hidden attack is aimed at the very people who conceal themselves.
לְנַפְשֹׁתָם
lenafshotam
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
The living self or person, the whole living being.
The Hebrew word translated “lives” is nefesh: the living soul, a whole person. The verse pairs that living self with blood, making the cost of their scheme bodily and personal, not abstract.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: A living person or self.
נֶפֶשׁ
The ambush threatens the people’s own living selves, not merely an idea of life.
nafash: To rest or be refreshed.
נָפַשׁ
This verb from the same root gives the living self a further dimension: a person who can be depleted and restored.
THE PATTERN
Violence laid out as a trap turns its force back onto the one who sets it.
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.This next verse uses the same word, נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, “living soul”), for the life taken by greed. The image shifts from ambush to gain, but the living self of the one who pursues it is still what gets consumed.
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