What Does Proverbs 25:10 Mean in the King James?
Lest he that heareth it put thee to shame, and thine infamy turn not away.
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 secret turned into a report can leave its speaker carrying disgrace that does not turn back.
THE MEANING
Your handling of a private matter can itself become public knowledge: the hearer may shame you, and the disgrace may not recede. Once spoken into another’s hearing, a confidence can outlive the dispute that prompted it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that exposing a confidence is controllable: that once the point is made, the story can be called back and the speaker can leave untouched.
THE ROOT
דִּבָּה
dibbah
GROWS FROM
דבב
d-b-b
To move the lips or speak softly; in this noun, a whispering or slanderous report.
English “infamy” can sound like an abstract reputation; דִּבָּה (dibbah, a slanderous report) is something carried through speech. Its relation to דּוֹבֵב (dovav, causing lips to speak) makes the movement from mouth to hearer tangible: the disgrace travels through words.
ALSO GROWS
dibbah: A whispering or slanderous report.
דִּבָּה
The disgrace in the verse is carried as a report that another person hears.
dovav: Causing lips to speak.
דּוֹבֵב
This branch gives speech a physical motion, tracing how a report leaves the speaker and reaches another.
תָשׁוּב
tashuv
GROWS FROM
שׁוב
sh-w-b
To turn, return, or go back.
“turn not away” in this verse is tashuv. The line pictures the disgrace as something that does not turn back or recede. The root holds both turning away and returning, giving force to the thought that a report set loose may be difficult to call back.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To turn or return.
שׁוּב
This is the root action in the verse: the disgrace does not turn away.
meshubah: Turning away or backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
This branch shows the root’s other direction: turning away can mark a departure that persists.
teshuvah: Return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The idea of return sharpens the verse’s image of disgrace that does not come back from where it has gone.
THE PATTERN
Words released into another person’s hearing can travel beyond the speaker’s control and carry consequences with them.
Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!THE THREAD
For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.Psalm 31:13 uses the same דִּבָּה (dibbah, slanderous report) found in Proverbs 25:10. Together, the verses show a report moving from hearing into surrounding threat, and make the cost of speech feel immediate.
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