What Does Proverbs 27:18 Mean in the King James?
Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured.
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’s “waiting” is active attendance: what you tend feeds you, and faithful service is given weight as honor.
THE MEANING
When you tend what is entrusted to you, its fruit becomes your portion. When you remain attentive in service, that attendance carries weight and is honored.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that waiting is empty delay or that faithful service goes unseen: the Hebrew carries active watchfulness, and the verse names honor as its return.
THE ROOT
שֹׁמֵר
shomer
GROWS FROM
שמר
sh-m-r
To guard, keep, or watch over.
The word translated “waiteth” carries the sense of active watchfulness and attendance. It places the servant’s steady care alongside the keeper’s care for the fig tree: both remain with what has been entrusted to them.
ALSO GROWS
shamar: To keep, guard, or watch.
שָׁמַר
This is the verb from the same root, making the servant’s attendance a form of keeping watch.
mishmar: A watch, guard, or charge entrusted to someone.
מִשְׁמָר
It shows that keeping watch can be a sustained duty of care, not merely a passing wait.
יְכֻבָּד
yekhubad
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
“honoured” in this verse is yekhubad. The word for being honored grows from the language of weight: to be honored is to count as weighty, to carry substance in another’s regard. The proverb presents attentive service as something recognized and given value.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy or weighty.
כָּבֵד
This is the root’s basic sense, revealing the concrete image underneath honor.
kavod: Weight, honor, or glory.
כָּבוֹד
This familiar noun shares the root and carries the same movement from weight to recognized honor.
kibbed: To honor or treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
This verb makes the link explicit: honoring someone is to regard them as having weight.
THE PATTERN
Sustained care and faithful service bear a fitting return: fruit for the keeper and honor for the servant.
A man shall be satisfied with good by the fruit of his mouth: and the recompence of a man’s hands shall be rendered unto him.If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.THE THREAD
Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:“Honour” here comes from the same כבד (k-b-d) root as “honoured” in Proverbs 27:18: both carry the sense of weight and worth. The firstfruits link that weight to what the land has yielded, echoing the keeper who eats the fig tree’s fruit.
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