What Does Proverbs 10:4 Mean in the King James?

He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.

Proverbs 10:4 · KJV

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 Hebrew word for “slack” also means “deceit,” so the verse describes careless work as a hand that betrays what it is meant to carry through.

THE MEANING

A slack hand leaves you in poverty, while a diligent hand brings wealth. The proverb says the way work is handled has material consequences.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that the manner of working makes no difference to material outcomes.

THE ROOT

רְמִיָּה

remiyyāh

GROWS FROM

רמה

To deceive or deal treacherously.

The word translated “slack” also carries the sense of deceit or treachery. The image is not only of work left undone: it is of a hand that fails the task entrusted to it.

ALSO GROWS

rāmāh: To deceive or deal treacherously.

רָמָה

This verb reveals the root’s sharper sense: slackness can be described as a kind of betrayal.

mirmāh: Deceit or guile.

מִרְמָה

This related noun shows the same root naming deception directly, bringing that hidden shade into the verse’s image of a slack hand.

remiyyāh: Slackness, deceit, or treachery.

רְמִיָּה

This is the word used for the slack hand, holding carelessness and betrayal together in one Hebrew word.

THE PATTERN

The work a hand steadily carries through shapes the fruit it receives.

The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute.

Proverbs 12:24 · KJVHere, too, the diligent hand is linked to an outcome, in this verse, authority rather than wealth.

For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.

Psalm 128:2 · KJVThe psalm pictures the labor of your hands returning to you as food and well-being.

Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.

1 Corinthians 3:8 · KJVThe verse connects each person’s labor with the reward that follows from it.

THE THREAD

The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute.

Proverbs 12:24 · KJV

The phrase “the hand of the diligent” repeats the same Hebrew words used in Proverbs 10:4. There, that hand makes wealth; here, it bears rule, the shared wording links steady work with the outcomes it brings.

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