What Does Proverbs 25:27 Mean in the King James?
It is not good to eat much honey: so for men to search their own glory is not glory.
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 word for glory carries the sense of weight: searching for your own honor cannot make it substantial.
THE MEANING
Honey’s sweetness does not make excess good; the verse applies that same limit to self-regard. When you keep examining and pursuing your own honor, the pursuit cannot give it substance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that continued self-promotion produces real significance: recognition hunted for its own sake can leave honor hollow.
THE ROOT
כְּבֹדָם
kevodam
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy, to carry weight.
The word rendered “glory” carries the sense of weight. The verse repeats it as it speaks of searching for one’s own honor, making the question not just whether honor is claimed, but whether that pursuit gives it substance.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy; weighty.
כָּבֵד
This branch makes the root’s image of weight visible beneath the verse’s language of glory.
kibbed: To honor, to treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
Honor is connected to giving someone weight, while the verse questions what self-seeking can make weighty.
חֵקֶר
cheqer
GROWS FROM
חקר
ḥ-q-r
To search out, investigate, probe.
The root describes probing or searching something out. Here the object of that search is one’s own honor, turning recognition into something to scrutinize and pursue.
ALSO GROWS
chaqar: To search out, examine, probe.
חָקַר
The verb emphasizes active investigation, echoing the effort of seeking one’s own honor.
cheqer: Search, inquiry, investigation.
חֵקֶר
This noun makes personal honor the object under examination, rather than simply an honor received.
THE PATTERN
Desirable things lose their goodness when appetite turns into excess or self-exaltation.
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.THE THREAD
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.Both verses use the same word for honey to show how something desirable can turn harmful in excess. This verse carries that measure from bodily appetite into self-regard: seeking one’s own honor cannot make it substantial.
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