What Does Proverbs 26:2 Mean in the King James?
As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.
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 verse pictures a baseless curse as something with no place to land: like a bird in flight, it does not settle.
THE MEANING
A curse without cause may be spoken, but it does not thereby gain a place in your life; like the bird overhead, it has no ground on which to settle. The verse distinguishes an utterance from the arrival of what it names.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Someone’s words can make a curse true simply by being spoken.
THE ROOT
קִלְלַת
qillath
GROWS FROM
קלל
To be light or slight; in this word, to curse or treat as low.
The word for curse shares its root with the sense of being light or treating something lightly. That echo sharpens the image: a curse without cause is spoken, but has no weighty ground on which to settle.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light or slight.
קַל
This form carries the root’s basic sense of lightness, which echoes the image of a curse that cannot gain ground.
qelalah: A curse.
קְלָלָה
This is the noun used in the verse; its shared root with qal lets the word carry the sense of lowering or treating as light.
חִנָּם
hinnam
GROWS FROM
חנם
For nothing, freely, or without cause.
The word translated causeless also means freely or for nothing. It describes a curse with no ground beneath it, as well as something given without a price.
ALSO GROWS
hinnam: Freely, without payment.
חִנָּם
This use shows the word’s sense of something given for nothing, without a price attached.
hinnam: For nothing, without cause.
חִנָּם
This is the sense in Job’s question about whether he reveres God for nothing, and it matches the verse’s description of a curse without cause.
תָּבֹא
tavo
GROWS FROM
בוא
To come, enter, or arrive.
The verse says the curse does not come or enter. Its image is not only of words being spoken, but of whether what they name actually arrives and settles.
ALSO GROWS
bo: To come or enter.
בּוֹא
This is the verb’s core sense in the verse: the causeless curse does not arrive.
mavo: An entrance or entryway.
מָבוֹא
This related form makes the root’s arrival-and-entry sense visible; the curse has no entry into the reality the verse describes.
THE PATTERN
A curse does not acquire standing merely by being spoken; the text asks whether its claim has real ground.
How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the LORD hath not defied?No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.THE THREAD
Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?Job’s accuser asks whether Job reveres God hinnam, meaning for nothing or without cause. Proverbs uses the same Hebrew word for a curse without cause, linking the accuser’s charge and the curse to the question of whether there is real ground beneath the claim.
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