What Does Proverbs 27:1 Mean in the King James?
Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
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
Hebrew casts the day as a bearer: its contents are a birth you have not yet encountered.
THE MEANING
You stand before a future whose contents are not yet known to you; the day brings what confidence cannot secure in advance. Boasting about tomorrow outruns what you can presently know.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that confident plans make the future yours or place its outcomes under your control.
THE ROOT
יֵלֶד
yēled
GROWS FROM
ילד
To beget, bear, or give birth.
“bring forth” in this verse is yēled. The verse pictures the day as giving birth to what is not yet visible. Tomorrow is an emergence, not an empty space whose contents you already possess.
ALSO GROWS
yālad: Give birth; beget.
יָלַד
The same root makes the day’s unknown future something coming into being.
yeled: Child.
יֶלֶד
A child is what has been brought forth, making the birth image concrete.
toledot: Generations; what comes forth.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch extends birth into the unfolding of what follows.
תִּתְהַלֵּל
tit·hallel
GROWS FROM
הלל
To praise or acclaim; in this reflexive form, to boast.
“boast” in this verse is tit·hallel. The word for boasting shares its root with praise: boasting is praise turned toward oneself. The verse places that self-praise beside a future whose contents remain unknown.
ALSO GROWS
hālal: Praise or acclaim.
הָלַל
The shared root shows that boasting is a form of praise directed toward oneself.
tehillah: Praise.
תְּהִלָּה
This branch makes the root’s link between self-boasting and praise audible.
תֵּדַע
tēdaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know or recognize, often through encounter.
“knowest” in this verse is tēdaʿ. The verse names a limit in knowing: tomorrow has not yet been encountered. Its events have not come into view, so confidence cannot turn them into knowledge.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: Know; recognize.
יָדַע
The verb highlights that the future is not yet known through encounter.
daʿat: Knowledge.
דַּעַת
This related noun underscores the gap between what is known now and what the day will bring.
THE PATTERN
The coming day exceeds what human knowledge and planning can secure in advance.
For he knoweth not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be?A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.THE THREAD
Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.Job uses the same ילד root for being born: his day is the setting of life’s arrival, while Proverbs pictures a day itself giving birth to what is unknown. The shared root makes each coming day an emergence rather than a possession.
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