What Does Proverbs 20:30 Mean in the King James?
The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly.
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 rendered “cleanseth” carries the sense of scouring or polishing by rubbing, binding cleansing to blows that reach the body’s interior.
THE MEANING
You meet this proverb in a severe image: a wound on the body is named as a scouring of evil, while blows reach the hidden chambers of the belly. The cleansing it depicts is painful and bodily.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that cleansing must be gentle is unsettled here: the verse names wounds and stripes as its means.
THE ROOT
תַּמְרוּק
tamruq
GROWS FROM
מרק
m-r-q
to scour, polish, or cleanse by rubbing
“cleanseth” in this verse is tamruq. The word names an abrasive polishing action, not just a clean state. Its family also names bodily preparations in Esther, joining removal and preparation in the same scouring word.
ALSO GROWS
maraq: to scour, polish, or cleanse by rubbing
מָרַק
This verb gives the verse’s cleansing an image of something rubbed away through force.
tamruq: a polishing or cleansing treatment; a cosmetic preparation
תַּמְרוּק
Esther uses this word-family for the women’s purifying treatments, showing the same root can describe bodily preparation.
מַכּוֹת
makkot
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
to strike or hit
The verse’s stripes are blows, and this root also names a מַכָּה as a plague or affliction elsewhere. Its range keeps the image severe: the word can describe injury to a body or a striking that overwhelms.
ALSO GROWS
hikkah: he struck
הִכָּה
This verb makes explicit the action behind the noun translated “stripes.”
makkah: a blow, stroke, or plague
מַכָּה
The singular form shows how the same root can name both a bodily blow and a broader affliction.
חֶדְרֵי
ḥadrei
GROWS FROM
חדר
ḥ-d-r
an inner chamber or enclosed room
The phrase translated “inward parts” is built from a word for chambers. The Hebrew gives the belly an image of inner rooms that the blows reach.
ALSO GROWS
ḥeder: a room or chamber
חֶדֶר
The singular makes clear that the inward parts are pictured as a space within the body.
ḥadarim: rooms or chambers
חֲדָרִים
This plural form uses the same word for inner rooms, reinforcing the verse’s image of the body’s interior as chambers.
THE PATTERN
The proverb presents painful correction as a force that reaches from visible injury toward hidden cleansing.
For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.THE THREAD
Now when every maid’s turn was come to go in to king Ahasuerus, after that she had been twelve months, according to the manner of the women, (for so were the days of their purifications accomplished, to wit, six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet odours, and with other things for the purifying of the women;)Both verses use forms of מרק. Proverbs uses the word for scouring evil away through blows; Esther uses it for the women’s purifying treatments, showing that this cleansing root can name both a brutal striking and a deliberate bodily preparation.
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