What Does Proverbs 11:27 Mean?
The one who rises early for good seeks favor, but the one who searches out evil, evil comes upon him.
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
He that diligently seeketh good procureth favour: but he that seeketh mischief, it shall come unto him.THE KEY
Three different Hebrew verbs for seeking reveal that pursuit is active: good leads toward favor, while evil pursued becomes what reaches the seeker.
THE MEANING
What you keep turning toward shapes what meets you. Seeking good leads into seeking favor, while searching out harm ends with that harm arriving in your life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you can pursue harm and remain untouched by it; what you seek can make its way back to you.
THE ROOT
יְבַקֵּשׁ
yəvaqqēsh
GROWS FROM
בקש
To seek, ask, or request.
“seeks” in this verse is yəvaqqēsh. The verb translated “procureth” is itself a form of “seek.” The first half of the verse links seeking good with seeking favor, keeping both within the same movement of pursuit.
ALSO GROWS
biqqēsh: Sought or requested.
בִּקֵּשׁ
This verb from the same root makes clear that the action in the verse is a search for favor.
mevuqqāsh: Sought after or desired.
מְבֻקָּשׁ
The root can describe what is sought, echoing the verse’s movement from the seeker to what comes within reach.
שֹׁחֵר
shoḥer
GROWS FROM
שחר
To seek early or eagerly; the same consonants also form the word for dawn.
“rises early for” in this verse is shoḥer. The word behind “diligently seeketh” carries the sense of seeking early, with the same consonants used for dawn. Good is not a passing preference here; it is what the seeker rises and turns toward.
ALSO GROWS
shaḥar: Dawn.
שַׁחַר
Its shared consonants give diligent seeking an image of early, eager turning.
meshaḥer: One who seeks early.
מְשַׁחֵר
This related form describes someone by their ongoing pursuit, fitting the verse’s picture of a seeker.
דֹרֵשׁ
doresh
GROWS FROM
דרש
To seek, inquire into, or investigate.
“searches out evil” in this verse is doresh. The second “seeketh” uses a different root from the diligent seeking in the first half. This root also appears in Amos 5:14, where the pursuit is directed toward good rather than evil.
ALSO GROWS
darash: To seek or inquire.
דָּרַשׁ
It shows that the second half describes an active search into evil, not a passing encounter with it.
midrash: Interpretation or exposition arising from inquiry.
מִדְרָשׁ
This related word preserves the root’s sense of searching into something, echoing the verse’s deliberate pursuit.
THE PATTERN
What you earnestly seek shapes what comes to meet you.
Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as you have spoken.Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
Seek good and not evil, that you may live, and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as you have spoken.Amos uses דָּרַשׁ (darash, seek or inquire), the same root Proverbs uses for seeking, but directs it toward טוֹב (tov, good). The shared wording reveals the hinge: the pursuit itself can turn toward good and life, or toward evil that comes back upon the seeker.
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