What Does Proverbs 23:32 Mean in the King James?
At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
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 bite arrives at the end: wine’s danger can remain hidden until its pleasure has passed.
THE MEANING
Wine’s harm may wait until later: what enters as a drink turns into a bite and spreads like venom. The verse holds both the delay and the violence of that arrival.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that immediate pleasure proves immediate safety; here, harm can arrive after the pleasure has passed.
THE ROOT
נָשַׁךְ
nashakh
GROWS FROM
נשך
to bite
“biteth” in this verse is nashakh. The verb for wine’s bite shares its root with the Hebrew word for interest or usury. That shared root gives both images the force of something that bites into what it takes.
ALSO GROWS
nashakh: Bite
נָשַׁךְ
This is the verb used here: wine’s harm takes the form of a bite.
neshekh: Interest or usury
נֶשֶׁךְ
The same root names interest as a bite, linking the verse’s venomous image with a word for taking from another.
אַחֲרִיתוֹ
acharitho
GROWS FROM
אחר
after, behind, later
“At the last” in this verse is acharitho. The verse opens with a word for what comes afterward. Its warning is built into the timing: the bite belongs to the aftermath, when the pleasure is already behind you.
ALSO GROWS
achar: After
אַחַר
This basic form makes the word’s sense of what follows visible.
acharon: Last or latter
אַחֲרוֹן
This related form echoes the verse’s focus on what comes at the end.
THE PATTERN
Some harms reveal their full force only after desire has already taken hold.
But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury:The word translated “biteth” here is נָשַׁךְ (nashakh), from the same root as נֶשֶׁךְ (neshekh), “interest” or “usury.” Hebrew gives interest the image of a bite; this verse uses that same root for wine’s delayed harm.
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