What Does Proverbs 10:11 Mean?
The mouth of the aligned is a well of life, but violence covers the mouth of the restless.
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
The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.THE KEY
A mouth can be a spring of life, while violence becomes the covering that veils it.
THE MEANING
Your mouth is a source: when it speaks from alignment, it gives life like a well. When violence governs it, violence becomes its covering, hiding what the mouth could bring forth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that violence is only something said: here, violence can become the covering over the mouth itself, shaping what comes through.
THE ROOT
יְכַסֶּה
yekhasseh
GROWS FROM
כסה
To cover, conceal, or spread over.
“covers” in this verse is yekhasseh. The verb comes from כסה, “to cover or conceal”: violence does not merely issue from this mouth; it lies over the mouth as its covering. Against the righteous mouth as a living spring, harm becomes a veil over what speech could give.
ALSO GROWS
kasah: To cover or conceal.
כָּסָה
This verbal form shares the root כסה and makes the image of covering explicit.
mekhasseh: Covering; one who covers.
מְכַסֶּה
This form from the same root shows covering as an ongoing action, as violence does over the wicked mouth.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
To be right or just; alignment.
“aligned” in this verse is tsaddiq. The righteous person is named through the root of rightness and alignment. The verse pictures speech flowing from that alignment as a well of life, rather than treating righteousness as a label detached from what the mouth brings forth.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice, rightness, alignment.
צֶדֶק
This noun shares the root consonants and shows the quality embodied by the righteous person.
tsedaqah: Righteousness; right action.
צְדָקָה
This branch carries the same root into action, linking the person’s alignment to what their words produce.
חַיִּים
chayyim
GROWS FROM
חיה
To live or be alive.
The word for life grows from the verb “to live,” so the well here gives livingness, not an abstract idea. The mouth is pictured as a source from which life can keep flowing.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Living, alive.
חַי
This form from the same root names the living quality carried by the well’s water.
chayah: To live, remain alive.
חָיָה
The verb shares the root directly and shows what the well of life sustains.
THE PATTERN
Speech carries the character of its inner source, bringing life and good or giving voice to harm.
Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it eat its fruit.A good human casts forth good things out of the good treasure of the heart, and an evil human casts forth evil things out of the evil treasure.Out of the same mouth comes forth blessing and curse. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.THE THREAD
A Psalm of David, Maschil. Flourishing is the one whose rebellion is released, whose shortcomings are covered.The word translated “covered” comes from the same root, כסה, as “covereth” here. The shared image sharpens the contrast: in Proverbs, violence covers the wicked mouth; in the psalm, a covered sin accompanies release.
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