What Does Proverbs 5:2 Mean in the King James?
That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
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 verse makes your lips custodians of knowledge, showing wisdom as both deliberate thought and guarded speech.
THE MEANING
Your discernment takes shape in the plans you hold, and your lips stand guard over what you know by encounter. Speech is not merely an outlet; it can preserve knowledge as it enters the world.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the belief that wisdom means voicing everything you know; it presents careful speech as one way knowledge is kept.
THE ROOT
מְזִמּוֹת
mezimmot
GROWS FROM
זמם
z-m-m
To devise, plan, or form an intention.
Discretion grows from the root for devising or planning, so what is guarded here is the mind’s power to form designs. The same root can name a purpose or a scheme; the verse places that power of planning under watch.
ALSO GROWS
mezimmah: A plan, purpose, or discreet design.
מְזִמָּה
It shows that discretion is active thought taking shape, not merely an abstract quality.
zimmah: A scheme or design, often harmful.
זִמָּה
The shared root shows that planning can form very different designs; discretion concerns how that power is held.
תִּנְצֹרְנָה
tintsorenah
GROWS FROM
נצר
n-ts-r
To guard, watch, or preserve.
“keep” in this verse is tintsorenah. The verb for what the lips do is natsar, to watch over and preserve. Beside the first line’s shamar, another word for guarding, it makes discernment and speech two stations of one custody: thought is kept, and knowledge is preserved at the point of utterance.
ALSO GROWS
natsar: To guard, watch, or preserve.
נָצַר
This is the root verb behind the lips’ act of keeping knowledge.
notser: One who guards or preserves.
נֹצֵר
This form casts the keeper as a continuing watchful presence, giving the lips an active role in preserving what is known.
דַּעַת
da'at
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know or perceive through encounter.
Da’at grows from yada, knowing by encounter. The verse pictures this lived knowing as something the lips can preserve, so knowledge is more than information held inside: it is knowing that is carried carefully into speech.
ALSO GROWS
yada: To know or perceive through encounter.
יָדַע
It reveals the experiential root beneath the verse’s word for knowledge.
madda: Knowledge or understanding.
מַדָּע
This related form keeps the sense of knowing connected to the verse’s da’at.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom protects what is known by governing the passage from inward discernment to outward speech.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:THE THREAD
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.The Hebrew verb translated “keep” here comes from natsar, the same root used when the lips keep knowledge in Proverbs 5:2. The connection opens speech back to its source: the heart is guarded, and the lips preserve what comes from it.
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