What Does Proverbs 13:21 Mean?
Harm pursues those who miss the mark; good makes whole the aligned.
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
Evil pursueth sinners: but to the righteous good shall be repayed.THE KEY
The word for “repayed” shares its Hebrew root with shalom, so the good that reaches the aligned carries a sense of making whole.
THE MEANING
When your life is turned toward missing the mark, evil is pictured as an active pursuer; when you are in alignment, good reaches you as repayment. The verb for repayment belongs to the same root family as wholeness, so the good that arrives carries a sense of completeness and well-being.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that your direction leaves no trace: the verse says what a path sets in motion can keep after you and return as good.
THE ROOT
יְשַׁלֵּם
yĕšallēm
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole or complete; to bring to wholeness.
The verb translated “repayed” belongs to the same root family as wholeness. Good reaching the aligned is therefore more than an abstract reward: its wording carries the resonance of what makes whole.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being
שָׁלוֹם
The same root family gives the return of good a wholeness resonance.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This shared sense of completeness deepens the verse’s picture of good as something that answers and restores.
shillem: Repay, make restitution
שִׁלֵּם
This form shows how the root’s sense of completing or settling what is due can express repayment.
תְּרַדֵּף
teraddēf
GROWS FROM
רדף
To pursue, chase, follow after.
“pursues” in this verse is teraddēf. The verse depicts evil as actively closing the distance, not as a distant idea. The same pursuit verb can describe goodness following someone, so the force of the image depends on what is doing the pursuing.
ALSO GROWS
radaf: Pursue, chase
רָדַף
This is the root’s core action: evil is portrayed as chasing after those who miss the mark.
rodef: A pursuer, one who chases
רֹדֵף
This form makes the active role plain: what pursues a person is the subject of the verse’s image.
צַדִּיקִים
tsaddiqim
GROWS FROM
צדק
To be right, just, aligned.
The righteous are the aligned ones, not merely people carrying a moral label. Set beside the word for wholeness, the verse pictures good answering a life that is rightly ordered.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Rightness, justice, alignment
צֶדֶק
This noun shows the root’s sense of right order beneath the description of the righteous.
tsedaqah: Righteousness, justice
צְדָקָה
This branch carries alignment into lived justice, giving the verse’s description a practical shape.
THE PATTERN
The direction of a life shapes what follows it and what it receives.
Surely goodness and faithful love pursue me all the days of my life, and I settle in the house of the LORD for the length of days.As alignment goes to life, so the one who pursues evil pursues it to his own death.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
Surely goodness and faithful love pursue me all the days of my life, and I settle in the house of the LORD for the length of days.The Hebrew verb translated “follow” is the same pursuit verb behind “pursueth” here. Psalm 23:6 turns that force toward goodness and faithful love, showing that what pursues a person is not fixed as evil.
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