What Does Proverbs 11:21 Mean in the King James?
Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished: but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered.
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
Joined hands cannot clear the wicked, and the seed of the aligned still slips free.
THE MEANING
A group’s agreement does not make its wrongdoing disappear; even when many hands join, it remains uncleared. What is aligned with justice carries a seed that can escape the threat pressed around it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that enough allies can make wrongdoing consequence-free: agreement is not acquittal.
THE ROOT
יִנָּקֶה
yinnāqeh
GROWS FROM
נקה
n-q-h
To be clean, clear, or free of guilt.
The Hebrew verb behind “unpunished” is about being cleared or found clean. Joined hands cannot produce innocence; the wrongdoing remains uncleared even when people reinforce one another.
ALSO GROWS
nāqî: Clean, innocent.
נָקִי
This related form makes clear that the verse speaks of being cleared of guilt, not merely escaping a penalty.
niqqāh: To clear or acquit.
נִקָּה
It shares the idea of removing guilt or liability, sharpening the force of “shall not be unpunished.”
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow or scatter seed.
The Hebrew root holds sowing, seed, and offspring together: what is planted and what grows from it belong to one image. The verse’s deliverance reaches into what continues, not only the person facing danger now.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow or scatter seed.
זָרַע
The verb shows that the seed carries the idea of what has been planted and set in motion.
zeraʿ: Seed, offspring, or descendants.
זֶרַע
This is the noun in the verse; it can name both what is sown and the line that grows from it.
צַדִּיקִים
tsaddiqim
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
Justice, rightness, alignment.
The root gives “righteous” the sense of alignment with what is right, rather than a mere label. Here, the seed belongs to that alignment, and its future is pictured as movement out of danger.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice, rightness, alignment.
צֶדֶק
This noun makes the root’s sense of alignment explicit.
tsedaqah: Righteousness or just action.
צְדָקָה
This branch carries the same root into lived conduct, linking the seed in the verse to a way of being.
THE PATTERN
Agreement can amplify wrongdoing without clearing it, while aligned life continues through pressure.
For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.THE THREAD
For the LORD loveth judgment, and forsaketh not his saints; they are preserved for ever: but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.This verse shares the Hebrew word זֶרַע (zeraʿ, seed) with Proverbs 11:21. Proverbs says the righteous seed escapes; Psalm 37:28 sets it beside the wicked seed being cut off, revealing two different futures in what a life carries forward.
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