What Does Proverbs 19:22 Mean in the King James?
The desire of a man is his kindness: and a poor man is better than a liar.
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
What makes a person truly desirable is faithful love, and poverty does not outweigh honesty.
THE MEANING
What is most worth seeking in a person is faithful love. This proverb weighs a poor person above a liar: having little does not erase a person’s worth, while falsehood makes a person unreliable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that having little makes someone lesser, or that a convincing claim can outweigh a truthful character.
THE ROOT
חַסְדּוֹ
chasdo
GROWS FROM
חסד
Faithful love: kindness expressed as loyalty and steadfast care.
The Hebrew word carries more than a passing kindness; it names a faithful quality that makes someone desirable. A related word can describe a person by that same quality, so the verse points to love that is part of one’s character.
ALSO GROWS
chesed: Faithful love, steadfast kindness.
חֶסֶד
This is the core quality the proverb says is desirable in a person.
chasid: A devoted or loyal person.
חָסִיד
The related word describes a person through the same seed of faithful love.
כָּזָב
kazav
GROWS FROM
כזב
To lie or be false; falsehood and unreliability.
“liar” in this verse is kazav. The proverb calls him a “man of falsehood,” making deception a defining mark rather than a single mistaken statement. Set beside faithful love, the word shows why even a person with little can be preferable: falsehood empties a person’s claims of trust.
ALSO GROWS
kazav: To lie, deny, or prove false.
כָּזַב
The verb shows falsehood as an action that breaks trust.
kazav: Falsehood or something unreliable.
כָּזָב
The noun names the quality attached to the liar in the proverb.
THE PATTERN
Faithful love and truthfulness reveal a person’s worth more deeply than outward standing or words alone.
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.THE THREAD
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:The Hebrew “mercy” here is chesed, the same root rendered “kindness” in Proverbs 19:22. Joined with truth, it illuminates the contrast with the “man of falsehood”: faithful love and truth belong together.
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