What Does Proverbs 10:20 Mean?
The tongue of the aligned is chosen silver; the heart of the restless is small.
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 tongue of the just is as choice silver: the heart of the wicked is little worth.THE KEY
A tongue shaped by alignment carries the value of selected silver, while the wicked heart is measured as almost nothing.
THE MEANING
Your words carry value when they come from alignment, like silver chosen for its worth. The wicked heart comes to little; the verse places tongue and heart side by side so the contrast is heard at once.
THE ROOT
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
To be right or just; alignment.
The word rendered “just” carries the sense of being in alignment. The verse presents the tongue’s value as something rooted in that alignment, not merely in how pleasing its sound is.
ALSO GROWS
tzedek: Alignment; what is right.
צֶדֶק
It names the quality that gives the just person’s tongue its value.
tzedakah: Aligned action; justice.
צְדָקָה
It extends the root from a state of alignment into what that alignment does.
נִבְחָר
nivchar
GROWS FROM
בחר
To choose or select.
“chosen” in this verse is nivchar. The silver is described as selected, recognized and set apart for its worth. That word makes the comparison more precise: the just tongue is precious speech, discerned as valuable.
ALSO GROWS
bachar: Choose; select.
בָּחַר
This is the action carried in “choice”: someone selects what is valued.
mivchar: Choice; the selected or finest thing.
מִבְחָר
It carries the same sense of something distinguished by selection.
THE PATTERN
Speech carries recognizable worth, while the heart from which it comes reveals its inner measure.
The words of the LORD are clean words, as silver refined in a furnace of the ground, filtered seven times.A word spoken upon its wheels is like apples of gold in frames of silver.You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.THE THREAD
The words of the LORD are clean words, as silver refined in a furnace of the ground, filtered seven times.Both verses use the Hebrew word כֶּסֶף (kesef), “silver,” to give speech a material value. Psalm 12:6 adds the image of silver tested in a furnace, opening the comparison here toward words whose worth can be recognized and tested.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us