What Does Proverbs 14:17 Mean in the King James?
He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated.
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 names two versions of folly: anger that cuts the pause short and thought deliberately organized around harm.
THE MEANING
A quick flare of anger makes you act foolishly; a life shaped by harmful schemes draws hatred. The verse speaks to both the instant reaction and the deliberate design, and their consequences are present now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a clever, controlled plan is harmless if it avoids an outburst. The verse says calculated wickedness also makes a person hated.
THE ROOT
קְצַר־אַפַּיִם
qetsar appayim
GROWS FROM
קצר
q-ts-r
To be short; the root also has the sense of reaping or cutting down.
“soon angry” in this verse is qetsar appayim. The phrase literally pictures someone as “short of nostrils”: appayim (אַפַּיִם, appayim) means nostrils and also carries the sense of anger and heat. The same root קצר (qatsar, “short”) appears in the next proverb with ruach (רוּחַ, ruach, breath), linking a hot flare with a narrowed moment before folly.
ALSO GROWS
qetsar ruach: Short of breath; rendered “hasty of spirit” in Proverbs 14:29.
קְצַר־רוּחַ
The same root for “short” links the quick temper here with the hasty response in the next proverb.
qatsar: To reap or harvest; to cut down.
קָצַר
The root also names cutting down, alongside its sense of being short.
qatsir: Harvest, the crop gathered.
קָצִיר
This noun comes from the same root and shows its concrete harvest branch.
מְזִמּוֹת
mezimmot
GROWS FROM
זמם
z-m-m
To devise, plan, or purpose.
The word points to plans and schemes, so the verse holds deliberate intention beside a sudden flare of anger. Its context makes these devices wicked: calculated harm does not become wisdom merely because it is planned.
ALSO GROWS
zamam: To devise or plan.
זָמַם
The verb names the act behind the devices: thought shaped into intention.
mezimmah: A plan, discretion, or scheme.
מְזִמָּה
The same word family can describe planning; here the verse shows the harm that makes a scheme hateful.
THE PATTERN
Folly takes shape both in anger that outruns judgment and in thought deliberately turned toward harm.
A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.He that deviseth to do evil shall be called a mischievous person.For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.THE THREAD
He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.The Hebrew phrase for “hasty of spirit” uses the same root קצר (qatsar, “short”) as “soon angry” here; the repeated image disappears in English. The next verse pairs that shortness with folly and sets it against great understanding.
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