What Does Proverbs 21:25 Mean in the King James?
The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour.
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
Desire left unworked does not stay passive; it becomes the force that consumes the one who carries it.
THE MEANING
When you want something while your hands keep refusing the work, the longing itself becomes destructive. The verse locates the danger in the gap between wanting and doing, where what could take form remains unmade.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wanting something intensely is the same as moving toward it.
THE ROOT
תַּאֲוַת
ta'avat
GROWS FROM
אוה
To desire, long for.
English can make desire sound like a private feeling, but the Hebrew word carries the force of longing. Here that longing continues while the hands refuse to act, and the verse shows how desire kept apart from doing can consume its bearer.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāvāh: To desire, long for.
אָוָה
The verb exposes the active pull inside the noun: this is longing that reaches toward something.
ta'avah: Desire, craving.
תַּאֲוָה
This noun is the form of longing named in the verse, and it appears again beside the sluggard in Proverbs 13:4.
מֵאֲנוּ
me'anu
GROWS FROM
מאן
To refuse, reject.
The verse says the hands refuse; it gives the inaction the force of a refusal. Desire remains present, but its means of expression are withheld, making the gap between longing and action the source of the danger.
ALSO GROWS
ma'en: To refuse, reject.
מָאֵן
This is the verb’s basic form, making clear that the hands’ stillness is expressed as refusal.
mi'un: Refusal, rejection.
מִיאוּן
The related noun names the withholding that keeps desire from becoming action.
לַעֲשׂוֹת
la'asot
GROWS FROM
עשה
To do, make, bring about.
“to labour / do” in this verse is la'asot. The phrase rendered “labour” uses the verb “to do” or “make.” That opens the line beyond a particular kind of work: the hands refuse the doing that would give desire a form, leaving it to turn inward.
ALSO GROWS
ma'aseh: Deed, work, thing made.
מַעֲשֶׂה
This branch names what doing produces: an action or something brought into being.
ʿasiyyah: Doing, action.
עֲשִׂיָּה
This related noun keeps the focus on action itself, the step desire cannot become while the hands refuse.
THE PATTERN
Desire without the action that gives it form remains empty and turns toward loss.
The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through.Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.THE THREAD
The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.The same Hebrew desire-root appears beside the sluggard in both verses. Proverbs 13:4 makes the emptiness of unacted longing plain; Proverbs 21:25 sharpens the cost, saying that desire can consume the one whose hands refuse to act.
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