What Does Proverbs 15:1 Mean in the King James?
A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.
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 gives speech a direction: one answer turns anger back, while a painful word sends it rising.
THE MEANING
When you meet anger, a gentle answer can turn its course; a painful word can make it rise. Your speech takes part in where the heat goes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that anger has only one inevitable direction once it appears. A response can turn it back, while hurtful words intensify it.
THE ROOT
יָשִׁיב
yashiv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
To turn or return; in this form, to cause something to turn back.
“turneth away” in this verse is yashiv. The verb causes a return: the answer turns anger back. The movement is directional, showing that speech can change where anger goes.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To return or turn back.
שׁוּב
This is the root movement behind the answer’s turning of wrath.
teshuvah: Return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The same root names a change of direction, echoing the answer that redirects anger.
אָף
af
GROWS FROM
אנף
anaph
To flare up or be angry; the related noun also carries the image of a nostril.
The word for anger holds the image of a nostril flaring. Set beside the verb for rising, it makes anger feel like heat gathering and climbing through the exchange.
ALSO GROWS
af: Nostril; anger or heat.
אַף
The verse’s “anger” carries the bodily image of a flare.
appayim: Nostrils; also used in the expression for being slow to anger.
אַפַּיִם
This related form preserves the link between anger and the nostrils, illuminating the heat that the soft answer turns back.
עֶצֶב
etsev
GROWS FROM
עצב
atsav
Pain, hurt, or sorrow.
Beneath “grievous” is the language of pain. The verse links a painful word with anger that rises, showing how hurt in speech can feed the heat of an exchange.
ALSO GROWS
atsav: To hurt, grieve, or cause pain.
עָצַב
It shares the root’s sense of pain with the word describing the speech.
itzavon: Pain, sorrow, or painful toil.
עִצָּבוֹן
This related form extends the root’s sense of pain, revealing the hurt carried in the “grievous words.”
THE PATTERN
Words can redirect anger or give it room to rise.
A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife.By long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone.Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:THE THREAD
I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him.Here “turned away” comes from שׁוּב (shuv), the same turn or return root as “turneth away,” and “mine anger” is אַף (af), the anger word linked with the nostril. Hosea repeats both parts of Proverbs’ image: anger is named, and its direction changes.
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