What Does Proverbs 23:20 Mean in the King James?
Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh:
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 repeated “among” shows how appetite can become an identity when a group makes excess ordinary.
THE MEANING
The verse places two forms of excess side by side: drinking past measure and eating without restraint. Its repeated “among” makes this a pattern of belonging, where shared appetite shapes the group. The words speak now wherever consumption becomes the bond that gathers people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that excess is only a private indulgence; the company built around it can make appetite a way of life.
THE ROOT
זֹלֲלֵי
zolelei
GROWS FROM
זלל
z-l-l
To be lavish or squander; here, to consume excessively.
“riotous eaters” in this verse is zolelei. “Riotous” can sound merely disorderly, but זֹלֲלֵי names gluttonous excess from זלל, a root also linked with squandering and what is treated as cheap. The verse sets unrestrained appetite beside a deeper disorder: value is spent lightly, and a group can make that seem ordinary.
ALSO GROWS
zolel: A glutton or excessive eater; used alongside “drunkard” in Deuteronomy 21:20 and Proverbs 23:21.
זֹלֵל
The same word makes clear that Proverbs 23:20 names a pattern of excess that continues into the next verse.
mizzolel: Vile or worthless; a related form appears in Jeremiah 15:19.
מִזּוֹלֵל
This usage echoes the root’s sense of treating something as cheap, bringing the waste of excess into view.
THE PATTERN
When appetite becomes the center of a person’s belonging or attention, it begins to govern the whole life.
Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son: but he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father.And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)THE THREAD
For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.The next verse repeats זֹלֵל (zolel, glutton), from the same root זלל (zalal, to consume lavishly or squander). The group pattern named here becomes a consequence there: excess spends down what sustains a person.
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