What Does Proverbs 6:28 Mean in the King James?

Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?

Proverbs 6:28 · KJV

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 consequence bodily: feet cannot meet fire and remain untouched.

THE MEANING

Your feet cannot cross burning coals without carrying their heat as a wound. The question exposes the wish to enter a dangerous closeness and emerge unchanged.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that desire can enter a destructive entanglement and leave untouched.

THE ROOT

תִּכָּוֶינָה

tikkāvenah

GROWS FROM

כוה

k-w-h

to burn or scorch

English presents “burned” as a result; the Hebrew verb belongs to a root that also names a burn mark. The image holds contact and its visible trace together: the foot does not merely pass over fire; it carries what the fire does.

ALSO GROWS

kavah: to burn or scorch

כָּוָה

The verb names what happens when the feet meet the coals.

mikhvah: a burn mark or wound caused by fire

מִכְוָה

This related noun makes the body’s lasting trace part of the same root’s picture.

THE PATTERN

Contact with a destructive force carries its consequence into the body or harvest.

Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?

Proverbs 6:27 · KJVThe image makes the consequence of carrying fire close to the body as unavoidable as the burned feet here.

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

Hosea 8:7 · KJVWhat is set in motion returns in a form that carries its consequences.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Galatians 6:7 · KJVThe harvest bears the consequence of what was sown, just as the body bears the consequence of touching fire.

THE THREAD

Or if there be any flesh, in the skin whereof there is a hot burning, and the quick flesh that burneth have a white bright spot, somewhat reddish, or white;

Leviticus 13:24 · KJV

The Hebrew term translated “hot burning” is ⁨מִכְוַת⁩ (mikhvat), meaning a burn, from the same ⁨כוה⁩ (k-w-h) root as “burned” here. Leviticus names the mark fire leaves on skin; Proverbs asks whether feet can avoid that mark when they touch coals.

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