What Does Proverbs 27:23 Mean in the King James?
Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds.
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 calls the flock’s condition its “face,” turning care into the work of seeing the lives actually before you.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you in whatever lives are entrusted to your care: they are not an abstraction or a count, but lives whose condition can be known. Care has a face-to-face quality, while the heart holds the whole herd in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that caring intentions alone amount to care: a life can be under your oversight and still be unseen.
THE ROOT
יָדֹעַ תֵּדַע
yādōaʿ tēdaʿ
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive through familiarity.
“diligent to know” in this verse is yādōaʿ tēdaʿ. The Hebrew repeats the root: “know well” is literally a knowing intensified. That repetition points to sustained familiarity with the flock, not a passing glance or a mere tally.
ALSO GROWS
yadaʿ: Know, recognize, perceive.
יָדַע
The verb in the verse makes knowledge itself part of care.
daʿat: Knowledge.
דַּעַת
This related noun shows that the same root can name both the act of knowing and what is known.
madaʿ: Knowledge, understanding.
מַדָּע
Its link to the same root echoes how knowing grows into familiarity and understanding.
פְּנֵי
p’nei
GROWS FROM
פ־נ־ה
p-n-h
To turn or face toward.
The Hebrew phrase is “the face of your flock,” where the KJV says “state.” The image brings their visible condition into view: attention turns toward the living beings themselves.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face, presence.
פָּנִים
The flock’s “face” makes its present condition something to be seen and known.
lifnei: Before, in front of, in the presence of.
לִפְנֵי
This related form likewise places someone or something in view, echoing the verse’s call to attend to what is before you.
THE PATTERN
Care becomes trustworthy when attention is specific enough to know the living condition of what is entrusted to you.
For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;THE THREAD
A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.The Hebrew verb translated “regardeth” comes from yada (ידע), the same root repeated in “know well” here. Together, the verses connect care for animals with knowing the life and condition of each one.
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