What Does Proverbs 9:9 Mean in the King James?
Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.
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
Wisdom is not the end of learning; it is the capacity that keeps receiving what makes it wiser.
THE MEANING
You are not finished growing because you are wise; wisdom remains capable of receiving more. When what is made known reaches a person aligned with what is right, learning increases. The verse pictures learning as something received and taken in.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being wise means having arrived, with nothing left to receive.
THE ROOT
לֶקַח
leqaḥ
GROWS FROM
לקח
laqaḥ
To take or receive.
The Hebrew says the aligned person adds leqaḥ (לֶקַח, learning or instruction), a word from the root for taking or receiving. Learning here carries the sense of continuing to take in what is given.
ALSO GROWS
lāqaḥ: To take, receive
לָקַח
This verb shares the seed of the word for learning, linking growth with what a person takes in.
leqaḥ: Learning, instruction
לֶקַח
This is the word the verse says the aligned person increases.
וְיֶחְכַּם
veyeḥkam
GROWS FROM
חכם
ḥākam
To be wise or skillful; to become wise.
The word for the wise person and the verb for becoming wiser share the same root. Wisdom is presented as a living capacity that continues to grow, not a title that closes learning.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākām: Wise, skillful
חָכָם
This describes the person who receives what is given.
ḥokhmāh: Wisdom
חָכְמָה
This noun shares the root with both the wise person and the act of becoming wiser.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
tsadaq
To be right or just; alignment.
The word rendered “just” carries the sense of alignment as well as justice. The verse places this aligned person alongside the wise person: both remain open to what can be received and learned.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice, what is right
צֶדֶק
This shares the root of the person called just and points to right alignment.
tsedaqah: Righteousness, justice
צְדָקָה
This branch carries the same root into the quality of living in alignment.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom keeps growing through receptive hearing and the testing of what is received.
A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.THE THREAD
A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:The phrase “increase learning” uses the same Hebrew word לֶקַח (leqaḥ, learning or instruction), rooted in taking or receiving. Proverbs 1:5 makes explicit the mechanism compressed in Proverbs 9:9: the wise person keeps receiving, and that reception is how wisdom grows.
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