What Does Proverbs 22:13 Mean in the King James?
The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets.
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 speaker turns a possible encounter with a lion into a certainty of murder before he ever leaves home.
THE MEANING
The lion is outside, but the certainty of death is already inside the speaker’s words. A possible danger becomes a guaranteed ending before he takes a step.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If danger is imaginable, then going out can only end in death.
THE ROOT
אֵרָצֵחַ
ʾērāṣēaḥ
GROWS FROM
רצח
Murder or kill
“slain” in this verse is ʾērāṣēaḥ. The Hebrew carries the sense of “I will be murdered,” sharpening the speaker’s prediction. The same root names murder and the murderer, so the verse gives a feared possibility the language of a certain killing.
ALSO GROWS
reṣaḥ: Murder
רֶצַח
The same root names the act the speaker predicts will happen to him.
rōtsēaḥ: Murderer
רֹצֵחַ
The root also names the imagined agent, making the speaker’s fear sound like a settled outcome.
THE PATTERN
A feared possibility can become the reason a person withholds movement or what has been entrusted to them.
The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.THE THREAD
Thou shalt not kill.Both passages carry the Hebrew root רָצַח (rāṣaḥ, murder or kill): Proverbs places it in the speaker’s prediction, while the command names the act directly. That shared root makes the imagined death feel linguistically concrete before any encounter happens.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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