What Does Proverbs 22:26 Mean in the King James?
Be not thou one of them that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts.
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 pledge can turn another person’s debt into a weight you are now carrying.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you where agreement becomes exposure: a handclasp can bind you to an obligation you do not control. The Hebrew names the debt with a word rooted in carrying, and the surety as the one who accepts the guarantee. The warning is about the weight transferred when you guarantee another person’s debt.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a pledge is harmless because the debt belongs to someone else: once you guarantee it, that obligation can become your liability.
THE ROOT
עֹרְבִים
ʿōrevim
GROWS FROM
ערב
To pledge oneself as security; to guarantee another’s obligation.
English makes “sureties” sound like a status, while the Hebrew root puts the act of guaranteeing in view. The guarantor enters the obligation, so another person’s debt can make a claim on them.
ALSO GROWS
ʿārav: To guarantee; become a surety.
עָרַב
This verb names the act behind being a surety: taking responsibility for another’s obligation.
ʿērāḇōn: A pledge or security.
עֵרָבוֹן
The related noun makes the guarantee concrete as something given to secure an obligation.
מַשָּׁאוֹת
mashsha’ot
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
The word for debts grows from the language of carrying. The verse presents a guarantee as taking on the weight of an obligation that began with someone else.
ALSO GROWS
maśśāʾ: A load or burden; in a loan context, a debt.
מַשָּׂא
This branch reveals the debt as a load the surety may have to bear.
nāśāʾ ʿāwōn: To bear crookedness or wrongdoing.
נָשָׂא עָוֹן
The same carrying root can describe bearing responsibility, illuminating what a guarantee transfers.
תֹקְעֵי־כָף
toqeʿei-kaf
GROWS FROM
תקע
To strike, thrust, or drive in.
“strike hands” in this verse is toqeʿei-kaf. The Hebrew phrase makes the handclasp a physical striking of palms. The same root can describe driving in a peg, giving the gesture the force of an enacted fastening rather than a casual touch.
ALSO GROWS
taqa kaf: To strike the palm; to pledge by striking hands.
תָּקַע כַּף
This is the bodily gesture named in the verse, joining the surety to the guarantee.
taqa yated: To drive in a peg.
תָּקַע יָתֵד
This use of the root carries the sense of fastening, echoing the binding force of the handclasp.
taqa bashofar: To blow a shofar or trumpet.
תָּקַע בַּשּׁוֹפָר
The root also names a forceful act that makes itself heard, underscoring that this pledge is an enacted commitment.
THE PATTERN
An obligation binds the one who accepts it, so a pledge can make another person’s debt your own burden.
My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,A man void of understanding striketh hands, and becometh surety in the presence of his friend.Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.THE THREAD
My son, if thou be surety for thy friend, if thou hast stricken thy hand with a stranger,The Hebrew repeats the paired actions of guaranteeing and striking hands. Read beside this verse, the handclasp’s force becomes visible: it binds the guarantor to another person’s obligation.
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