What Does Proverbs 13:12 Mean in the King James?
Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
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 verse makes waiting bodily: hope stretched out weakens the heart, while its arrival becomes nourishment, a tree of life.
THE MEANING
When what you are waiting for keeps being drawn out, your heart can feel the strain; the verse names that hurt as real. When the longed-for thing arrives, it becomes more than a brief pleasure: it is pictured as a tree of life, something that nourishes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that delay leaves you untouched: waiting can make the heart sick, and the arrival of what you long for can bring life.
THE ROOT
תּוֹחֶלֶת
toḥelet
GROWS FROM
יחל
y-ḥ-l
Wait, hope, expect.
The Hebrew word for hope, תּוֹחֶלֶת (toḥelet), comes from יָחַל (yāḥal), which also means to wait or expect. Hope here has the texture of waiting; when it is prolonged, the heart experiences that stretch.
ALSO GROWS
yāḥal: Wait, hope, expect.
יָחַל
This verb shows that hope is bound up with waiting, not merely with a positive outlook.
məyāḥēl: One who waits or hopes.
מְיַחֵל
The person who hopes is described through the same root as the act of waiting.
מְמֻשָּׁכָה
memushakhah
GROWS FROM
משך
m-sh-k
Draw, pull; extend or prolong.
“deferred” in this verse is memushakhah. מְמֻשָּׁכָה (memushakhah) means prolonged or drawn out, from מָשַׁךְ (māshakh), to draw or pull. Paired with hope as waiting, it pictures expectation being stretched along; the delay has weight in the heart.
ALSO GROWS
māshĕkhēnî: Draw me.
מָשְׁכֵנִי
The same root can describe being drawn forward, giving the verse’s prolonged waiting a sense of being pulled along.
mĕshōkh: Continue, draw out.
מְשֹׁךְ
This form is rendered “continue” in Psalm 36:10, showing how drawing can extend through time.
תַּאֲוָה
taʾavah
GROWS FROM
אוה
ʾ-w-h
Desire, long for, crave.
תַּאֲוָה (taʾavah) is desire or longing, from אָוָה (ʾāvah), to desire. When that longing comes, the verse calls it a tree of life: its arrival is pictured as nourishment, not just a moment of satisfaction.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāvah: Desire, long for.
אָוָה
The verb names the longing that stands behind the desire in the verse.
hitʾavvu: They longed for, craved.
הִתְאַוּוּ
This form shows the root in active longing, the kind of desire that can weigh on a person while its object is absent.
THE PATTERN
What is longed for may be delayed in a way that weighs on the heart, yet its arrival can renew and nourish life.
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.THE THREAD
She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.The phrase “tree of life” also describes wisdom for the one who holds fast to her. Here, desire’s arrival is pictured as life-bearing too, making fulfillment feel like nourishment that can keep bearing fruit.
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