What Does Proverbs 26:10 Mean in the King James?
The great God that formed all things both rewardeth the fool, and rewardeth transgressors.
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 Hebrew word behind both instances of “rewardeth” can also mean “hires,” so the verse holds recompense and appointment together.
THE MEANING
The one who forms all things holds the fool and the boundary-crosser within the reach of consequence. The repeated word for reward also carries the sense of wages or hiring, giving the verse a picture of what is assigned as well as what is paid.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that foolishness or boundary-crossing puts someone beyond the reach of the Creator’s ordering.
THE ROOT
שֹׂכֵר
sokher
GROWS FROM
שכר
ś-k-r
To hire or pay wages.
The Hebrew repeats the same hiring word for the fool and for the transgressors. “Rewardeth” can sound like payment after the fact; the root also evokes hiring someone and assigning them a place or work, bringing recompense and appointment into the same image.
ALSO GROWS
śākār: Wages, reward
שָׂכָר
This noun from the same root makes the payment sense of “rewardeth” concrete.
śākhîr: A hired worker
שָׂכִיר
This branch brings out the sense of someone being taken into service, which echoes the verse’s repeated hiring language.
עֹבְרִים
ʿovrim
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
To cross over or pass beyond.
The word translated “transgressors” carries the image of people crossing over or passing beyond. It gives transgression a spatial shape: a crossing of a boundary, not merely a label for a person.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To cross over, pass through
עָבַר
The verb makes visible the movement contained in the description “transgressors.”
ʿēver: Beyond, across
עֵבֶר
This related noun preserves the sense of crossing to the other side or beyond a limit.
THE PATTERN
What a person sets in motion through their work returns to them in keeping with what they have done.
Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: for thou renderest to every man according to his work.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
And Laban said unto Jacob, Because thou art my brother, shouldest thou therefore serve me for nought? tell me, what shall thy wages be?“Wages” here comes from the same שכר (ś-k-r), meaning “hire,” root behind “rewardeth” in Proverbs. The shared root opens the verse’s reward as something with the texture of wages and service, not only an abstract return.
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