What Does Proverbs 10:25 Mean?
As the whirlwind passes, so the restless is no more; but the aligned is a foundation of the ages.
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
As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation.THE KEY
The aligned person is not merely one who survives the storm; the verse calls that person a foundation that endures across the ages.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks into your present: what passes through your life is not what establishes the ground beneath it. Wickedness has no abiding place; the aligned one is the foundation that remains across the ages.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whatever dominates a moment must also be what lasts.
THE ROOT
יְסוֹד
yesod
GROWS FROM
י־ס־ד
y-s-d
To establish, set down as a foundation.
The verse does not only say the righteous person lasts: it names that person as the foundation. The root connects lasting strength with what is firmly set beneath life.
ALSO GROWS
yāsad: To establish or lay a foundation.
יָסַד
This verb beneath the noun shows permanence as something firmly set in place.
môsād: A foundation or established base.
מוֹסָד
It names the structural base, extending the verse’s image beyond survival to what supports what is built above it.
עָבַר
ʿāvar
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ר
ʿ-b-r
To pass across, cross over from one side to another.
“passes” in this verse is ʿāvar. The whirlwind is described as something that crosses through and moves on. The contrast is between a passing force and a foundation that remains.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēver: Beyond, across, or the other side.
עֵבֶר
This branch retains the root’s movement across a boundary, making the whirlwind’s passing feel like transit rather than permanence.
maʿavār: A crossing, passage, or place to cross.
מַעֲבָר
It gives a name to the route across: the whirlwind’s movement is an event that passes through, not a settled foundation.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צ־ד־ק
ts-d-q
Alignment with what is right.
The root carries the sense of alignment, so the righteous person is more than someone with a moral label: this person stands in alignment and becomes the verse’s enduring foundation. The text links alignment with what can bear weight across the ages.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Rightness, justice, or alignment.
צֶדֶק
This branch names the quality the righteous person embodies.
tsedaqah: Righteousness or justice expressed in right action.
צְדָקָה
It shows alignment taking form in life, connecting the person’s rootedness to how that person acts.
THE PATTERN
What is merely passing is swept away, while what is firmly founded remains under pressure.
The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the breath blows away.And the rain came down, and the rivers came, and the winds breathed and fell against that house, and it did not fall, for it had been laid on the rock.The aligned does not totter for the ages; the restless does not settle on the earth.THE THREAD
Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a weighty cornerstone, a foundation set firm. The one who leans his weight will not hurry.The word translated “foundation” here grows from the same root as the foundation in Proverbs. Proverbs names the aligned person as what endures; Isaiah pictures a foundation laid and tested, showing stability as something able to bear weight.
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