What Does Proverbs 11:11 Mean in the King James?
By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted: but it is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked.
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
A city rises through the blessing its upright people carry and falls through the wickedness voiced within it.
THE MEANING
A city’s rise stands beside the blessing of the upright, and its ruin beside the wicked person’s mouth. What enters shared life through words can help raise the place everyone inhabits or become part of its collapse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that words only describe a city after it is built; the verse gives speech a place in the city’s rising and ruin.
THE ROOT
בִּרְכַּת
birkat
GROWS FROM
ברך
To bless; the root is traditionally connected with bending the knee.
The root’s bodily image makes blessing more than a pleasant wish: it carries the posture of honoring and favor toward another. Here that blessing has a reach beyond one person, helping lift the life shared by a whole city.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee
בֶּרֶךְ
This branch preserves the root’s bodily image of bending the knee, giving blessing a sense of honoring another.
barukh: Blessed
בָּרוּךְ
This form describes one who receives blessing, showing the root’s movement from the act of blessing to its effect.
THE PATTERN
Words carried into shared life can build others up or spread destruction through a community.
Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.THE THREAD
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:“Blessing” in Proverbs and “bless” and “a blessing” in Genesis come from ברך (barakh, to bless; traditionally linked with bending the knee). Genesis shows blessing moving through one person; Proverbs shows its reach extending to the life of a whole city.
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