What Does Proverbs 6:25 Mean in the King James?
Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids.
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 same Hebrew seed names both coveting and what is desirable, so seduction begins when the heart turns beauty into a prize.
THE MEANING
Desire takes hold before a hand reaches: beauty is held in the heart, while the eyes make the pull feel like capture. The danger is already present in the gaze, where another person can become an object of wanting. The warning reaches the moment before outward possession.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that desire is harmless while it stays private and no one is touched; the verse locates the danger in what the heart covets and the gaze follows.
THE ROOT
תַּחְמֹד
taḥmōd
GROWS FROM
חמד
To desire or covet; to regard as desirable.
English separates lust from beauty’s desirability, but חמד (ḥ-m-d) carries both the act of coveting and the quality of what is wanted. The verse locates seduction in that valuation: beauty becomes a prize in the heart before taking occurs.
ALSO GROWS
neḥmād: Desirable, pleasing, precious.
נֶחְמָד
In Genesis 2:9, this word describes what is pleasant to the sight; the same root links the gaze with the heart’s desire.
maḥmād: A desirable or precious thing.
מַחְמָד
This form names the thing regarded as precious, revealing how coveting can turn a person or possession into something to claim.
THE PATTERN
Desire takes shape through the gaze and the heart before it becomes an act of taking.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.THE THREAD
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.Genesis uses the same חמד root in נֶחְמָד (neḥmād), “to be desired”: seeing, desiring, and taking form one movement. Proverbs exposes that same threshold in the heart and eyelids, before the taking is complete.
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