What Does Proverbs 11:10 Mean in the King James?

When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth: and when the wicked perish, there is shouting.

Proverbs 11:10 · 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 city’s joy shows that when the aligned flourish and the wicked perish, neither event stays private.

THE MEANING

When the aligned flourish, the city rejoices with them; their good reaches into the shared life around them. When the wicked perish, the city answers with a shout, making their end a public event.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie that righteousness is only a private virtue, with no effect on a community, or that the wicked can perish without changing what the city feels.

THE ROOT

אֲבֹד

ʾābad

GROWS FROM

אבד

Perish, be lost, lose the way.

The root behind “perish” also carries the sense of being lost. The verse sets the wicked’s perishing alongside the flourishing of the aligned, so the city’s shout responds to a change in what shapes its shared life.

ALSO GROWS

ʾābad: To perish or be lost.

אָבַד

This verb is the seed of the verse’s word for “perish,” keeping loss visible beneath the English rendering.

ʾavaddon: Destruction.

אֲבַדּוֹן

This related word makes the root’s movement toward ruin explicit.

צַדִּיק

tsaddiq

GROWS FROM

צדק

Be right, just, aligned.

“Righteous” carries the root’s sense of alignment and rightness. Here that alignment is not sealed inside one person: when the aligned flourish, the whole city rejoices.

ALSO GROWS

tsedeq: Rightness, justice.

צֶדֶק

This branch shows that the righteousness in the verse belongs to a wider order of justice.

tsedaqah: Righteousness, alignment.

צְדָקָה

This branch echoes the verse’s picture of rightness flourishing in public life.

THE PATTERN

Shared joy rises when alignment flourishes in public life and destructive power comes to an end.

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.

Proverbs 29:2 · KJVThe people’s joy or grief shifts with whether the aligned or the wicked hold power.

And Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and purple: and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad.

Esther 8:15 · KJVThe city’s rejoicing follows a reversal that changes what threatens its shared life.

And there was great joy in that city.

Acts 8:8 · KJVA city’s joy appears as a shared response when people are delivered from affliction.

THE THREAD

Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever.

Psalm 9:5 · KJV

The Hebrew root ⁨אבד⁩ (ʾābad, perish or be lost) sits beneath Proverbs’ “perish” and Psalm’s “destroyed.” Psalm 9 makes the ending more visible: the wicked’s name is put out, showing why their perishing changes the city’s shared voice.

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