What Does Proverbs 31:14 Mean in the King James?
She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
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
Her bread is not limited by proximity: trade carries provision across distance, and her household is where it arrives.
THE MEANING
Her household is linked to a world beyond its walls. What is distant is not absent: movement and exchange carry bread into the present. What sustains you now can come from beyond what is nearby.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that distance means deprivation: what is far away can still become bread at hand.
THE ROOT
סוֹחֵר
socher
GROWS FROM
סחר
To go about, circulate, or trade.
“merchants” in this verse is socher. The word for merchant comes from a root associated with traffic and trade: goods move between places. The image connects her household to that circulation, so her provision reaches beyond what is nearby.
ALSO GROWS
sechorah: Merchandise, trade goods.
סְחֹרָה
Names what moves through exchange between places.
sachar: Trade, traffic, commerce.
סַחַר
Names the exchange that carries goods along the routes pictured in the verse.
מִמֶּרְחָק
mimmerchaq
GROWS FROM
רחק
To be far or distant; to put at a distance.
“afar” in this verse is mimmerchaq. The word names distance, yet here that distance is crossed by the route that brings bread home. Remoteness is not the same as absence; it can be the span provision travels.
ALSO GROWS
rachoq: Far, distant.
רָחוֹק
Carries the same sense of distance as the verse’s afar.
hirchiq: To make distant, remove far away.
הִרְחִיק
Shows that the root can describe distance as something established between places.
תָּבִיא
tavi
GROWS FROM
בוא
To come, enter, or arrive; in this form, to cause to come in.
“bringeth” in this verse is tavi. The verb presents her as bringing the food in: distant provision becomes present in her household. The word holds both movement and arrival in one action.
ALSO GROWS
bo: To come, enter, arrive.
בּוֹא
Names the arrival contained in the verb translated bringeth.
mavo: Entrance, entryway.
מָבוֹא
Shares the root’s sense of coming in, echoing the arrival of food at home.
THE PATTERN
Provision reaches need by moving through routes that span distance.
And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands.They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judæa:THE THREAD
As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.Both verses use the Hebrew root רחק (raḥaq, to be far) for what comes from a distance. Here distance carries bread; there it carries good news that refreshes like cold water. In both, remoteness becomes the span across which something sustaining arrives.
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