What Does Proverbs 30:20 Mean in the King James?
Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.
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 mouth that consumes then wipes itself performs the verse’s hidden logic: the act is treated as erased, and erasure is renamed innocence.
THE MEANING
The verse portrays an adulterous woman’s sequence with blunt clarity: she eats, wipes her mouth, and claims no wrongdoing. It speaks now wherever someone treats concealment as proof of innocence. The denial does not undo the act; it completes the concealment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that cleaning away a trace can make the act itself disappear.
THE ROOT
מָחֲתָה
māḥătāh
GROWS FROM
מחה
m-ḥ-h
To wipe or rub away; by extension, to erase or blot out.
“wipes her mouth” in this verse is māḥătāh. This root describes both wiping and blotting out, so the gesture carries an echo of erasure. English can make it sound like simple cleanup; the Hebrew opens the possibility that the trace is being treated as though it has vanished.
ALSO GROWS
māḥâ: To blot out or erase.
מָחָה
The same root appears in Psalm 51:1, where transgressions are asked to be blotted out; here it lets a wiped mouth echo the image of an erased record.
ūmāḥâ: And he will wipe away.
וּמָחָה
In Isaiah 25:8 the same root describes wiping away tears, showing its range from a bodily trace to something removed from sight.
דֶּרֶךְ
déreḵ
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread or step; also the path or course formed by treading.
The word for “way” is rooted in treading, so the verse names a practiced course, not just an isolated act. Its sequence, consume, wipe, deny, is presented as a pattern someone can keep repeating.
ALSO GROWS
dārakh: To tread, step, or march.
דָּרַךְ
The verb supplies the bodily image beneath “way”: a course is made by steps taken along it.
déreḵ: A way, path, or course.
דֶּרֶךְ
The noun names the route those steps form, making the verse’s sequence a recognizable track of action.
THE PATTERN
Removing the visible trace does not erase the underlying act, and denial adds another layer of concealment.
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.“Blot out my transgressions” uses the same Hebrew root, מחה (māḥâ, wipe or erase), as “wipes her mouth.” The shared verb opens the small bodily gesture onto the larger image of a record being erased.
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