What Does Proverbs 16:27 Mean in the King James?
An ungodly man diggeth up evil: and in his lips there is as a burning fire.
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 turns speech into excavation: evil is dug up, then emerges at the lips as fire.
THE MEANING
A person can excavate harm below the surface and carry it into the open through speech. The lips become the boundary where what was buried emerges, and the words arrive with fire’s force.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that words are harmless because they are only talk: it presents speech as the opening of something cultivated beneath the surface and as a force that can scorch.
THE ROOT
כֹּרֶה
koreh
GROWS FROM
כרה
to dig, excavate
“diggeth up” in this verse is koreh. The verb pictures someone actively digging evil out, as if working below the surface. The same root describes digging a pit and digging a well, so excavation can create a trap or a source; here the buried work reaches the lips as fire.
ALSO GROWS
karah bor: dug a pit
כָּרָה בּוֹר
Psalm 7:15 uses this root for a pit dug into the ground, making the verse’s excavation concrete.
karu be’er: dug a well
כָּרוּ בְּאֵר
Genesis 26:25 uses the same root for digging a well, showing that what is excavated can also become a source.
שְׂפָתָיו
sefatav
GROWS FROM
שפה
lip, edge, boundary
The Hebrew word שָׂפָה can mean lip, language, or an edge such as a shore. The lips are the boundary where what is inward crosses into speech, and the next image makes that crossing scorch.
ALSO GROWS
safah: lip
שָׂפָה
The physical lip is the edge through which the buried matter in the verse comes into view.
safah: language
שָׂפָה
The same word names language, linking the lips directly with the speech that carries the fire.
sefat hayam: shore or edge of the sea
שְׂפַת הַיָּם
The shore sense reinforces the image of a boundary where one domain meets another.
THE PATTERN
What is cultivated inwardly can emerge through speech as a force that harms.
Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs; like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.THE THREAD
He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.The same Hebrew root, כרה (karah), appears in both verses for digging. Psalm 7:15 makes the excavation tangible: the digger can fall into the pit he has made.
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