What Does Proverbs 30:13 Mean in the King James?
There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.
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 doubled image makes pride visible: the whole gaze rises above others.
THE MEANING
This verse names a collective posture still present now: a generation can make superiority part of the way it sees. Its eyes and eyelids both rise, turning self-exaltation into a visible gaze. The verse exposes that height as haughtiness, not clear sight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that looking down from a higher place means seeing more clearly; here, the elevated gaze reveals arrogance.
THE ROOT
רָמוּ
rāmû
GROWS FROM
רום
To rise, be high, or be exalted.
The verse’s word for lofty belongs to the root of rising and height. The same root appears in words for what is lifted up, showing how the image of elevation runs through the line and settles specifically in the eyes.
ALSO GROWS
rām: High or elevated.
רָם
This is the same language of height that makes the gaze in the verse feel raised above others.
terumah: A lifted portion or contribution.
תְּרוּמָה
The root can describe something raised up; here, the height belongs to a person’s gaze.
יִנָּשֵׂאוּן
yinnāśəʾûn
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
“lifted up” in this verse is yinnāśəʾûn. This verb shares a root with words for carrying and being raised. The eyelids are pictured as borne upward, making haughtiness more than an inward opinion: it becomes a sustained posture of looking down.
ALSO GROWS
nāśāʾ: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This root holds both lifting and carrying, so the eyelids’ upward position feels like an assumed posture the generation bears.
nāśîʾ: A leader or chief.
נָשִׂיא
This related word can name one elevated to a position; the verse shows elevation turned into a proud way of seeing.
THE PATTERN
Self-exaltation raises the gaze, but Scripture repeatedly brings human pride low.
A Song of degrees of David. LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.THE THREAD
The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.Isaiah names the fate of the height Proverbs sees in the eyes: human loftiness is brought down. The only exaltation that stands is the LORD’s.
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