What Does Proverbs 3:20 Mean in the King James?
By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.
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
What seem like two separate acts, depths breaking open below and clouds releasing dew above, flow from one knowing that holds creation together.
THE MEANING
You live within an order where what lies deep can open and the skies let dew fall. The knowing named here is more than stored information; it joins hidden depths and nourishing weather in one living order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that knowledge is only information held in the mind: here, knowing is bound to what opens beneath and what nourishes from above.
THE ROOT
דַּעְתּוֹ
daʿtô
GROWS FROM
יָדַע
To know, recognize, or perceive through encounter.
דַּעַת (daʿat), “knowledge,” grows from יָדַע (yadaʿ), “to know or perceive.” This is not detached information: the verse binds knowing to depths opening and the sky yielding dew.
ALSO GROWS
yadaʿ: To know, recognize, or perceive.
יָדַע
The root verb keeps knowledge anchored in knowing rather than merely collecting facts.
madaʿ: Knowledge or understanding.
מַדָּע
This related noun carries the same seed into knowledge as a capacity to perceive.
נִבְקָעוּ
nibqāʿû
GROWS FROM
בָּקַע
To cleave, split open, or break through.
“broken up” in this verse is nibqāʿû. The verb pictures the depths splitting open, not simply lying beneath the surface. The same root describes the breaking open of the deep in Genesis 7:11, so it names the force of opening without promising a gentle outcome.
ALSO GROWS
baqaʿ: To split, cleave, or burst open.
בָּקַע
This is the verb whose passive form describes the depths breaking open in the verse.
biqʿāh: A valley or plain.
בִּקְעָה
The word carries the image of an opening or cleft in the land.
THE PATTERN
Creation’s hidden waters and visible weather answer to a source beyond human making, carrying both sustenance and force.
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.THE THREAD
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.Both verses use בָּקַע (baqaʿ), “to cleave or break open,” for the deep. Proverbs joins that opening to dew, while Genesis joins it to the flood; the shared root names the opening itself, while the outcome changes.
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