What Does Proverbs 5:15 Mean in the King James?
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
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
Fidelity gives desire a source from which it can flow abundantly.
THE MEANING
Your own cistern and well picture desire with a faithful, intimate source. The water is moving and abundant, so belonging is not pictured as deprivation; it is where desire can flow freely. The verse speaks now wherever intimacy is shaped by fidelity.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that fidelity makes desire dry or lifeless is undone by the image of running waters.
THE ROOT
נֹזְלִים
nozelim
GROWS FROM
נזל
nazal
To flow, drip, or run as liquid.
“running waters” in this verse is nozelim. The Hebrew word נֹזְלִים (nozelim, flowing waters) comes from נזל (nazal, to flow): the image is water actively moving from a source. This root makes the verse’s abundance a continuing flow from the reader’s own well.
ALSO GROWS
nazal: To flow, drip, or stream.
נָזַל
The verb gives the verse its action: water reaches the reader as movement, not a fixed possession.
nozel: Flowing; liquid.
נוֹזֵל
This form names what is in motion, echoing the verse’s flowing waters drawn from within the well.
THE PATTERN
Scripture portrays intimate desire as life-giving when it flows within mutual, faithful belonging.
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.THE THREAD
A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.Song of Solomon uses the same Hebrew root נזל (nazal, to flow) for “streams.” Proverbs locates the flow in one’s own well; the Song imagines it pouring through a beloved garden, making intimacy a source of living water.
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