What Does Proverbs 25:14 Mean in the King James?
Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.
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 false gift is a sky full of promise: the boast rises, but nothing reaches the ground as rain.
THE MEANING
A claim of giving with no truth beneath it gathers overhead like clouds and wind, but brings no nourishment. The verse speaks now wherever generosity is announced more loudly than it is given: the gap between promise and provision is the drought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A generous claim is itself proof of generosity.
THE ROOT
נְשִׂיאִים
nesi'im
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasaʾ
Lift, carry, bear.
The word for clouds shares its root with נָשִׂיא (nasiʾ), meaning leader or prince, something lifted up. Height and display are already in the image; the missing rain reveals that what rises into view can still deliver nothing.
ALSO GROWS
nasiʾ: Leader, prince; one raised up.
נָשִׂיא
The same root that names the lifted clouds can name an elevated person, linking the verse’s image to display and status.
massaʾ: A load or burden carried.
מַשָּׂא
This branch makes the root’s sense of carrying concrete: what is lifted may bear something, while these clouds carry no rain.
מִתְהַלֵּל
mithallel
GROWS FROM
הלל
halal
Praise, celebrate.
“boasteth” in this verse is mithallel. This is a reflexive form of halal: praise turned toward oneself. The Hebrew places the boast inside the language of praise, sharpening the contrast between self-celebration and the absent gift.
ALSO GROWS
hallel: Praise.
הַלֵּל
The boast belongs to the same praise-root, but here the attention turns toward the boaster and the gift he claims.
hallelu-yah: Praise Yah.
הַלְלוּיָהּ
This familiar praise-word carries the same root, showing how the verse’s self-praise uses the language of celebration.
מַתַּת
mattat
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
Give, set, place.
The word for gift grows from נָתַן (natan), the verb for giving, setting, or placing. The verse keeps the claim tied to the concrete act: what is announced as a gift has not become provision.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, set, place.
נָתַן
The verb names the act behind the gift; the boast is exposed when the act does not happen.
mattan: Gift.
מַתָּן
This related gift-word makes the shared seed visible: a gift is giving made tangible.
THE PATTERN
Claims and appearances reveal their truth by what they actually produce.
Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;THE THREAD
A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.Both verses use a gift-word from נָתַן (natan, give, set, place). In Proverbs 18:16 the gift makes room; here a false claim of giving becomes clouds and wind without rain, the shared root makes the difference hinge on whether anything is actually given.
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