What Does Proverbs 5:9 Mean in the King James?
Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
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 warning calls the loss a transfer: honor and years are not merely diminished, but given into another’s hands.
THE MEANING
The verse names a costly transfer happening now: a person’s honor and years can be placed in the keeping of others, including the cruel. The danger reaches beyond reputation into the recurring seasons of a life and who gets to consume them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a destructive sexual attachment costs only embarrassment; the verse names a deeper loss, with years placed under the power of the cruel.
THE ROOT
תִּתֵּן
titten
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, set, place.
“give” in this verse is titten. The verse does not only describe honor and years vanishing: its verb says they are given over. The same root carries the sense of setting or placing something, so the warning describes a transfer of what shapes a life.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
A gift is something given from one hand to another, making the transfer inside this verse more visible.
nathun: given, set, placed
נָתוּן
This form shows what has been handed over as something placed in another’s keeping.
שְׁנֹתֶיךָ
shenotekha
GROWS FROM
שנה
sh-n-h
Repeat, do again; the word for a year is linked with a recurring cycle.
The Hebrew word for years carries an echo of repetition: time comes around in recurring seasons. The verse warns that these repeated turns of a life can be handed into cruel hands.
ALSO GROWS
shanah: year
שָׁנָה
A year is a recurring turn of time, giving “years” a sense of repeated seasons, not only elapsed duration.
shanah: repeat, do again
שָׁנָה
The verb makes the cycle inside the word for a year audible.
sheni: second
שֵׁנִי
The ordinal carries the sense of what comes again in a sequence.
THE PATTERN
What a person yields to a bond can become the power through which that bond takes hold of the person’s life.
That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.THE THREAD
For by me thy days shall be multiplied, and the years of thy life shall be increased.Both verses use שָׁנָה (shanah, “year”), with the word carrying the sense of recurring cycles. Proverbs 5:9 shows those cycles placed at cruelty’s disposal; Proverbs 9:11 shows wisdom increasing them.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us