What Does Proverbs 7:27 Mean in the King James?
Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.
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 house is not shelter at the end of the road; it is the road descending into death.
THE MEANING
Her house is the route itself, carrying a person downward into death’s inner chambers. The verse speaks now wherever an inviting dwelling leads toward that same end.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what feels intimate and sheltering must be safe: here, the house itself is the way downward.
THE ROOT
דַּרְכֵי
darkei
GROWS FROM
דרך
To tread; a track made by walking.
The Hebrew phrase places the “ways of Sheol” as her house, and derekh belongs to darakh, “to tread.” A way is a track made by movement, so the house itself functions as the route, not simply a place along it.
ALSO GROWS
darakh: To tread, march.
דָּרַךְ
The root ties a way to the steps that make and follow a track.
derekh: Way, road, path.
דֶּרֶךְ
This is the path-word in the verse: the house is presented as a way leading somewhere.
יֹרְדוֹת
yoredot
GROWS FROM
ירד
To descend, go down.
The descent is built into the sentence’s movement: the ways keep going down into the chambers. The root makes the danger directional, with death at the bottom rather than merely associated with the house.
ALSO GROWS
yarad: To descend, go down.
יָרַד
This is the verb’s root form and names the movement carried by “going down.”
yored: One who descends; descending.
יוֹרֵד
This participle makes descent an ongoing movement, as in the verse’s paths that continue downward.
מָוֶת
mavet
GROWS FROM
מות
To die.
The root names dying, the dead, and death itself. “Chambers of death” places the destination within that whole field: this is where the downward route ends.
ALSO GROWS
mut: To die.
מוּת
The verbal root names the action that “death” gathers into a destination.
met: Dead; a dead person.
מֵת
This form shows the root also names those who have reached death.
hemit: To cause to die; put to death.
הֵמִית
The causative form extends the same root from dying to bringing about death.
THE PATTERN
A path is revealed by the destination it carries a person toward.
For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:THE THREAD
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.Proverbs 5:5 uses the same descent root, ירד (yarad, “descend”), and the same death root, מות (mut, “die”; here מָוֶת, mavet, “death”). Its image opens this verse further: the house is a path whose direction and destination are already joined.
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