What Does Proverbs 20:16 Mean in the King James?
Take his garment that is surety for a stranger: and take a pledge of him for a strange woman.
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
A stranger’s debt can reach the guarantor’s own covering because a surety has bound himself into the obligation.
THE MEANING
When you stand surety for a stranger, your own garment becomes reachable as collateral; another person’s obligation lands on your body and property. The verse presses the same exposure around a strange woman: a pledge is taken from the man himself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that standing behind another’s debt costs you nothing: your own covering is placed at risk.
THE ROOT
עָרַב
ʿārav
GROWS FROM
ערב
ʿ-r-b
To become surety, to pledge oneself as security for another.
“surety” in this verse is ʿārav. The verb names the guarantor’s act of making himself answerable, not just a role in someone else’s finances. The related noun עֵרָבוֹן (ʿērāḇôn), meaning “pledge” or “security,” gives that entanglement a tangible form: what is pledged can be taken.
ALSO GROWS
ʿārēv: A person who stands as security for another’s obligation.
עָרֵב
It names the person exposed when the stranger’s obligation goes unpaid.
ʿērāḇôn: Something given as a guarantee.
עֵרָבוֹן
It shows how becoming answerable turns into a tangible claim on what belongs to the guarantor.
חַבְלֵהוּ
ḥavlēhû
GROWS FROM
חבל
ḥ-b-l
To bind or take as a pledge; the same consonants also name a cord.
The pledge is an act done to the man himself, not merely an agreement on paper. The related word for a cord makes the binding visible: collateral ties the guarantor’s own assets to the obligation.
ALSO GROWS
ḥével: A cord used to tie or bind.
חֶבֶל
This related word makes the pledge’s binding force concrete.
ḥāval: To take something as security for an obligation.
חָבַל
It names the creditor’s act of holding the guarantor’s property against the debt.
THE PATTERN
A guarantee draws the guarantor’s own security into another person’s obligation.
I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever:Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts.By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.THE THREAD
My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,The same Hebrew root, עָרַב (ʿārav), names becoming surety in both verses. Proverbs 6:1 sets the pledge beside the stranger’s obligation, showing how the guarantor’s liability begins when he binds himself to it.
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