What Does Proverbs 14:4 Mean in the King James?
Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox.
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 clean manger can mark an absence: the ox that makes it a working place also brings the harvest.
THE MEANING
A clean manger can mean nothing is being fed there: no ox, no use, no harvest to tend. Much produce comes through the ox’s strength, making the trough a working place rather than a spotless one. Here, the signs of upkeep can accompany provision rather than show that it has failed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that flourishing means leaving everything untouched and clean: the empty trough may look orderly precisely because no abundance is passing through it.
THE ROOT
תְּבוּאוֹת
tevu’ot
GROWS FROM
בוא
to come, enter
The word rendered “increase” is produce: a form of what comes in. The verse presents abundance as an arrival brought about by the ox’s strength, while the clean trough marks what is absent when nothing comes through.
ALSO GROWS
bo: to come, enter
בּוֹא
The verb at the root of “increase” makes the harvest’s arrival audible beneath the English wording.
mevo: entrance, entryway
מְבוֹא
This branch carries the sense of something coming in, echoing the yield that enters the store.
tevuah: produce, yield
תְּבוּאָה
This is the singular form of the word family in the verse: produce is what comes in from the work.
בָּר
bar
GROWS FROM
ברר
to sift, clarify, make pure
“Clean” can sound like a sign that everything is in order, but the verse places that clarity in a manger with no oxen. The ox’s working presence brings produce along with the need to tend the trough.
ALSO GROWS
barar: to sift, clarify, purify
בָּרַר
Its sense of making clear deepens the verse’s image of a spotless manger, even as that spotless state accompanies absence.
barur: clear, pure
בָּרוּר
This related form shows the clean surface the verse describes; here, that surface alone does not tell the whole story.
THE PATTERN
Provision grows through living work, and the signs of that work can accompany the abundance it produces.
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.THE THREAD
And sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase.“Fruits of increase” uses the same tevuah word family as “increase” in Proverbs: produce is what comes in. Psalm 107:37 shows that arrival emerging from sowing and planting, while Proverbs names the ox’s strength within the work that brings it about.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us