What Does Proverbs 19:28 Mean in the King James?
An ungodly witness scorneth judgment: and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity.
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 links a witness who mocks justice with a mouth that swallows wrongdoing: contemptuous speech is appetite, not mere commentary.
THE MEANING
When testimony makes judgment a joke, justice is being consumed now. The wicked mouth does not only speak wrongdoing; it swallows it as something to take in. The verse exposes a bond between contempt for what is right and appetite for what is crooked.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that mocking a just judgment is harmless speech. It portrays that contempt as bound to the consumption of wrongdoing.
THE ROOT
יִבְלַע
yivlaʿ
GROWS FROM
בלע
to swallow, engulf, consume
The root gives “devoureth” the force of swallowing whole: the wicked mouth takes in wrongdoing as something consumable. The same root describes the earth swallowing people and words described as “devouring,” extending the image from appetite to destructive speech.
ALSO GROWS
vattivlaʿ: and it swallowed
וַתִּבְלַע
In Numbers 16:32, this form describes the earth swallowing people and their households, showing how the root can carry the force of engulfment.
divrê-bālaʿ: devouring words
דִּבְרֵי־בָלַע
Psalm 52:4 uses the same root for words themselves, directly echoing Proverbs’ image of a mouth that consumes.
THE PATTERN
Speech that overturns moral judgment does not stay neutral; it corrodes the order it names.
He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!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
Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue.Psalm 52:4 uses the same Hebrew root בלע, “to swallow, engulf,” in the phrase “devouring words.” That echo makes the mouth in Proverbs more than a picture of appetite: speech itself can become the thing that consumes.
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