What Does Proverbs 6:29 Mean in the King James?
So he that goeth in to his neighbour’s wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.
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 Hebrew root for “touch” also carries the sense of striking or afflicting, giving this contact a weight English can hide.
THE MEANING
This verse names entering a neighbor’s marriage as an act that cannot be cleared of guilt. Its wording refuses to make the boundary crossing harmless by reducing it to a touch.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that adultery can be a harmless private act with no guilt attached.
THE ROOT
נֹגֵעַ
noge'a
GROWS FROM
נגע
n-g-ʿ
To touch or reach; in other forms, to strike or afflict.
“toucheth” in this verse is noge'a. This root’s range joins contact with impact, so “touch” need not sound weightless here. That range does not mean every use of the word implies harm, but it makes the verse’s warning about this contact more vivid.
ALSO GROWS
naga: To touch, reach, or strike.
נָגַע
The verb carries both the idea of contact and, in some uses, impact.
nega: A stroke, affliction, or plague.
נֶגַע
This noun shows how the same root can describe an impact that leaves a mark.
יִנָּקֶה
yinnaqeh
GROWS FROM
נקה
n-q-h
To be clean, clear, or free from guilt.
“not be innocent” in this verse is yinnaqeh. The verse speaks of being cleared, not merely feeling innocent. Its wording presents guilt as something that cannot be made to disappear by describing the act as only a touch.
ALSO GROWS
naqi: Clean or innocent.
נָקִי
This related form makes the link between innocence and cleanness visible.
niqqayon: Cleanness or innocence.
נִקָּיוֹן
This noun shows the root’s use for a state of being clear or clean.
THE PATTERN
Crossing a boundary carries consequences that cannot be erased by minimizing the act.
Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.THE THREAD
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.Exodus uses the same root, נקה (n-q-h), when it says God will not “clear the guilty.” The shared word makes Proverbs’ “not be innocent” a matter of being cleared or left uncleared, holding forgiveness alongside the truth that guilt is not erased by pretending the act did not matter.
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