What Does Proverbs 13:25 Mean?
The aligned one eats until his living soul is filled; the belly of the restless goes empty.
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 righteous eateth to the satisfying of his soul: but the belly of the wicked shall want.THE KEY
Alignment reaches fullness in the living soul, while wickedness leaves even the belly in lack.
THE MEANING
The one in alignment eats to the satisfaction of the living soul, while the wicked person’s belly remains in lack. The verse holds fullness and deprivation together as present conditions, showing that appetite alone does not secure enough.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that appetite alone guarantees satisfaction dissolves here: the wicked person’s belly can still remain in lack.
THE ROOT
לְשֹׂבַע
leśovaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׂבע
ś-b-ʿ
To be full or sated; to reach satisfaction.
“filled” in this verse is leśovaʿ. The word carries the sense of arriving at fullness, a state of having enough. Beside the belly that lacks, it makes the verse’s contrast one of fullness and shortage.
ALSO GROWS
śāvaʿ: Be sated, be satisfied.
שָׂבַע
This verb shows fullness as a state the living self reaches.
śāvēaʿ: Full, satisfied.
שָׂבֵעַ
This adjective names the condition of having enough that the verse associates with the aligned person.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
Rightness, justice, alignment.
“aligned one” in this verse is tsaddiq. The word for the righteous person grows from the vocabulary of rightness and alignment. Here alignment is pictured through a living self that reaches fullness, joining moral order to ordinary nourishment.
ALSO GROWS
ṣedeq: Rightness, justice, alignment.
צֶדֶק
It carries the root’s sense of being in right order, the quality named in the verse.
tsedaqah: Justice, righteousness, aligned conduct.
צְדָקָה
This branch shows the same root taking shape in lived action, rather than remaining an abstract label.
תֶּחְסָר
teḥsar
GROWS FROM
חסר
ḥ-s-r
To lack, be short, or be diminished.
“goes empty” in this verse is teḥsar. The belly’s ‘want’ carries the additional sense of being short or lacking. Set beside fullness, the root makes the verse’s stark contrast audible: one reaches enough, while the other remains deprived.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsēr: To lack, be short.
חָסֵר
This verb gives the belly’s condition the sense of falling short.
maḥsōr: Lack, need, want.
מַחְסוֹר
This noun names the state of deprivation that stands opposite the verse’s fullness.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures the living self reaching fullness through provision, while hunger left unmet remains in lack.
For he sates the thirsting living soul, and fills the hungry living soul with goodness.The LORD does not starve the living soul of the aligned, but he thrusts away the craving of the restless.Flourishing are those who hunger and thirst for alignment, for they are filled.THE THREAD
For he sates the thirsting living soul, and fills the hungry living soul with goodness.The Hebrew word translated “satisfieth” comes from the same root as the satisfaction in Proverbs, and both verses name the living soul. The Psalm shows the longing soul receiving goodness, opening fullness as something that reaches the whole living self.
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