What Does Proverbs 13:22 Mean?
The good one leaves an inheritance to his children's children; the strength of those who miss the mark is stored away for 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
A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.THE KEY
The good man causes an inheritance to reach generations beyond himself, while the sinner’s wealth is already hidden away for another.
THE MEANING
Goodness in you reaches beyond your own years: it becomes provision for descendants you may never meet. The verse pictures a sinner’s wealth as stored for the just, so what someone holds now may pass into another’s hands.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what is in your hands must remain yours is undone here: inheritance and wealth both move beyond their current holder.
THE ROOT
יַנְחִיל
yanḥil
GROWS FROM
נחל
naḥal
To inherit or possess; in this verb form, to cause someone to inherit or to allot a possession.
“leaves an inheritance” in this verse is yanḥil. The verse’s “leaveth” is an act of making heirs: the good man causes descendants to receive a share. The root makes the inheritance a passage of possession across generations, not simply something left behind.
ALSO GROWS
naḥalah: An inheritance or allotted possession.
נַחֲלָה
This noun names what is passed along; the verse’s verb turns that inheritance into an act that reaches the children’s children.
hinḥil: To cause someone to inherit or to allot.
הִנְחִיל
This causative form highlights the giver’s role in making another person an heir.
צָפוּן
tsafun
GROWS FROM
צפן
tsaphan
To hide, store away, or treasure.
“stored away” in this verse is tsafun. What the KJV renders “laid up” is described as hidden away. The wealth has not vanished; it is held in reserve, beyond the sinner’s present grasp and destined for the just.
ALSO GROWS
tsaphan: To hide, store, or treasure away.
צָפַן
The verb gives “laid up” the sense of keeping something concealed in reserve.
tsafun: Hidden or stored away.
צָפוּן
This form depicts the wealth as already held in reserve for another.
טוֹב
ṭov
GROWS FROM
טוב
ṭov
Good, beneficial, or pleasing.
“the good one” in this verse is ṭov. The related verb יָטַב describes being good or doing well: goodness here is more than a label attached to a person. Its effect appears in provision that reaches descendants beyond the giver’s own years.
ALSO GROWS
ṭovah: Goodness, benefit, or what is good.
טוֹבָה
This noun shows the quality named by “good” as a benefit that can be received.
yaṭav: To be good, do well, or be pleasing.
יָטַב
This verb presents goodness as something that takes effect; here, its effect is provision for the next generations.
THE PATTERN
What people gather does not necessarily remain with them; it can pass into another’s hands.
For God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to the person who is good before him. But to the one who misses the mark, he gives the task of gathering and heaping up, to give to the one who is good before God. This too is vapor and a herding of breath.Surely every man walks in a shadow. Surely for vapor they roar. He heaps up, and does not perceive who will gather them.But God said to him, Mindless one, this night your living soul will be demanded back from you. Then whose will those things be that you have made ready?THE THREAD
House and wealth are the portion of the fathers, and from the LORD is a wife of insight.“Leaveth” in Proverbs 13:22 comes from נחל, the same root behind “inheritance” here. One verse shows a person causing descendants to inherit; the other names household wealth itself as an inheritance passed from fathers.
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