What Does Proverbs 10:16 Mean?
The work of the aligned bends toward life; the increase of the restless bends toward missing.
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 labour of the righteous tendeth to life: the fruit of the wicked to sin.THE KEY
A person’s work and yield already carry a direction: alignment tends toward life, while the wicked person’s yield turns toward the miss.
THE MEANING
Your work carries a direction. Work rooted in alignment tends toward life; the wicked person’s yield is directed toward the miss. The verse holds what is produced and where it leads together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what you produce is morally neutral: labor and yield already lean toward life or toward the miss.
THE ROOT
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צ־ד־ק
ts-d-q
Justice, rightness, alignment.
“aligned” in this verse is tsaddiq. The root carries the sense of alignment: the righteous worker is not merely wearing a moral label; the work itself tends toward life. Related forms show the same seed in both rightness and enacted justice, connecting character with what a person does.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice, rightness, alignment.
צֶדֶק
This related form brings the verse’s idea of righteousness into the realm of what is right and just.
tsedaqah: Righteousness, justice, or charitable giving.
צְדָקָה
It shows alignment expressed through concrete action, which resonates with the verse’s focus on labor.
תְּבוּאַת
tevu'at
GROWS FROM
ב־ו־א
b-w-ʾ
Come, enter.
“increase” in this verse is tevu'at. The word rendered “fruit” is produce or yield, from a root meaning “come” or “enter.” The verse treats what a life brings forth as carrying a direction, not as a neutral harvest.
ALSO GROWS
bo: Come, enter.
בּוֹא
This verb gives the root’s basic movement: something comes or enters.
mavo: Entrance, entry.
מָבוֹא
This related noun makes the root’s movement concrete, illuminating the yield as what comes forth from a life.
חַטָּאת
chatta't
GROWS FROM
ח־ט־א
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
Miss, fail, go wrong.
The wicked person’s yield is directed toward the miss. English “sin” can sound like a fixed category; the root also carries the motion of missing or failing.
ALSO GROWS
chata: Miss, fail, do wrong.
חָטָא
The verb preserves the movement of missing that lies beneath the verse’s endpoint.
chet: A miss; sin.
חֵטְא
This related noun makes the outcome a matter of missing the mark, rather than an abstract label.
THE PATTERN
Work and fruit carry their source into their outcome, tending toward life or corruption.
The wicked does deceitful work, but the sower of alignment has wages of truth.So every good tree makes good fruit, but the rotten tree makes evil fruit.For the one who sows into his own flesh reaps decay from the flesh, but the one who sows into the breath reaps from the breath the life of the ages.THE THREAD
The fruit of the aligned is a tree of life, and the one who takes living souls is wise.The same Hebrew words for “righteous” and “life” recur here: the righteous person’s fruit is pictured as a tree of life. That makes the direction in this verse visible, the work of alignment tends toward life, and its yield can itself become life-giving.
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