What Does Proverbs 15:3 Mean in the King James?
The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.
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 Hebrew word for “beholding” is lookout language: the LORD’s gaze keeps watch everywhere, with both evil and good in view.
THE MEANING
Your present life is fully within the LORD’s view: no place you enter and no hidden thing falls outside it. The same gaze sees both evil and good.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that harm can escape notice by being hidden, or that quiet goodness goes unseen, is undone here: neither falls outside the LORD’s sight.
THE ROOT
צֹפוֹת
tsophot
GROWS FROM
צפה
צפה (tsaphah) means to watch or look out, especially from a vantage point.
The word translated “beholding” carries the image of a lookout keeping watch. The verse presents the LORD’s gaze as active and far-reaching: every place lies within its view, and neither evil nor good disappears from it.
ALSO GROWS
tsopheh: watcher, lookout
צֹפֶה
This is the same root in the form of one who watches, making the verse’s gaze resemble a watchman’s attentive notice.
mitspēh: lookout, watchtower
מִצְפֶּה
This branch names the vantage point from which a lookout sees; it echoes the verse’s picture of sight reaching across every place.
THE PATTERN
No hidden place puts a life outside the LORD’s sight; darkness, secrecy, and every path remain visible.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.THE THREAD
Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.The “watchmen” here share the Hebrew root צפה (tsaphah, to watch or look out) with “beholding” in Proverbs. The root evokes a lookout alert to what is in view; Proverbs extends that watch across every place.
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