What Does Proverbs 1:15 Mean?
My son, do not walk the way with them; hold back your foot from their path.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:THE KEY
A path becomes yours through the foot that joins it, and this verse locates the choice in that single movement.
THE MEANING
This verse names the threshold where proximity becomes participation: the route is theirs while your foot remains withheld. Walking and way meet in the body; restraint interrupts the joining before it settles into a course.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being surrounded by a group makes its direction inevitable: the foot can still be withheld.
THE ROOT
דֶּרֶךְ
derekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
D-R-K
To tread, step, or travel along.
The English “way” can sound like a route already laid out; derekh carries the act of treading that makes a way. Beside the withheld foot in the next phrase, the verse makes joining a shared course a question of where movement goes.
ALSO GROWS
darakh: To tread or step.
דָּרַךְ
The route is tied to footsteps: a way is something trodden.
midrakh: A foothold or place to tread.
מִדְרָךְ
This branch makes the choice tangible: the foot either finds its place on that course or is held back from it.
מְנַע
menaʿ
GROWS FROM
מנע
M-N-ʿ
To withhold, restrain, or prevent.
“hold back” in this verse is menaʿ. The command carries the sense of withholding: the foot is kept from the other path. That makes refusal an absence of movement, not a second route that must be built.
ALSO GROWS
manaʿ: To withhold or prevent.
מָנַע
The root puts the emphasis on holding back the foot before it joins the group’s course.
nimnaʿ: To refrain or be kept from.
נִמְנַע
This form echoes the verse’s central possibility: a person can remain apart from a path by not entering it.
הָלַךְ
halakh
GROWS FROM
הלך
H-L-K
To go, walk, or proceed.
“walk” in this verse is halakh. The word names bodily movement and can also describe a course of conduct. With derekh beside it, the verse links walking with the way being walked: direction takes shape through ongoing steps.
ALSO GROWS
holekh: One who goes or walks.
הוֹלֵךְ
The branch keeps the verse grounded in a person’s actual movement.
halakhah: A way of going or established practice.
הֲלָכָה
The same root can name a way of proceeding, showing how steps can become a settled course.
THE PATTERN
A shared direction takes shape through steps, and withholding those steps interrupts the path before it becomes settled.
Do not enter the path of the restless, and do not walk the way of the harmful ones.Flourishing is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of those who miss the mark, nor sit in the seat of the scoffers.Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and roomy is the way that leads to perishing, and many are those who go in through it.THE THREAD
Do not enter the path of the restless, and do not walk the way of the harmful ones.“Way” translates the same Hebrew word derekh (דֶּרֶךְ) in both verses, carrying the sense of a course made by treading. Proverbs 4:14 opens the image further by placing the foot’s movement beside the shared way it may join.
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