What Does Proverbs 6:5 Mean in the King James?
Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.
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
“Deliver thyself” pictures escape as breaking free from a grip while escape is still possible.
THE MEANING
The verse sees you in danger, with escape still possible. Like a roe breaking from the hunter’s hand and a bird slipping from the fowler’s grasp, deliverance is movement out of another’s hold.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being caught means you are helpless to escape.
THE ROOT
הִנָּצֵל
hinnāṣēl
GROWS FROM
נצל
To snatch away, rescue, or bring out of danger.
“Deliver thyself” in this verse is hinnāṣēl. The word carries the image of being pulled out of another’s grasp. Its form here places escape in the foreground: you are to get free of the hold that threatens to keep you.
ALSO GROWS
hiṣṣîl: To rescue or deliver.
הִצִּיל
This form names the act of pulling someone out of danger, the same movement pictured in the verse.
haṣṣālāh: Rescue or deliverance.
הַצָּלָה
This noun names the result of that extraction: being brought out from what held you.
יָקוּשׁ
yāqûš
GROWS FROM
יקש
To set a snare or ensnare.
The fowler is named by the trapping root itself: he is the one who lays snares. The verse’s danger is not an accidental grip but the reach of someone who catches.
ALSO GROWS
môqēsh: A snare or trap.
מוֹקֵשׁ
This is the trap made by the fowler, the hidden mechanism behind his grasp.
yəqōšîm: Fowlers or trappers.
יְקוֹשִׁים
This plural form names those who set traps, making the fowler’s identity explicit in the root.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures deliverance as escape from a trapper’s grasp and release from the snare that holds.
Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.THE THREAD
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.The fowler in both verses is יָקוּשׁ (yāqûš), meaning a trapper, from יקש (yaqash), the root of snaring. Proverbs shows you breaking free from his hand; Psalm 91 names deliverance from the snare itself.
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