What Does Proverbs 14:24 Mean?
The crown of the wise is their riches, but the folly of fools is folly.
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 crown of the wise is their riches: but the foolishness of fools is folly.THE KEY
Wisdom’s riches form the crown that surrounds the wise, making their substance visible.
THE MEANING
Wisdom takes visible shape in the riches that surround a life; they become its crown. Folly likewise bears its own nature in its outcome.
THE ROOT
עֲטֶרֶת
ʿăṭeret
GROWS FROM
עטר
to surround, encircle, crown
The Hebrew crown carries the image of something that surrounds. The wise person’s riches are pictured as an encircling honor, joining substance and distinction in one image.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāṭar: to surround, encircle, crown
עָטַר
The verb supplies the action behind the crown: riches surround the wise as their visible honor.
ʿăṭārāh: crown, diadem
עֲטָרָה
This related noun names the ornament that encircles the head, echoing the verse’s image of riches as a crown.
חֲכָמִים
ḥăkāmîm
GROWS FROM
חכם
to be wise or skillful
“wise” in this verse is ḥăkāmîm. The root carries the sense of skill as well as discernment: wisdom is perception that can take form in practiced judgment. In this verse, that formed wisdom is joined to riches as its crown.
ALSO GROWS
ḥākam: to be wise, act skillfully
חָכַם
This verb shows wisdom as an active capacity that shapes how a person lives.
ḥokmāh: wisdom, skill
חָכְמָה
This related noun names the quality embodied by the wise people in the verse.
עָשְׁרָם
ʿošrām
GROWS FROM
עשר
to be rich; wealth
“riches” in this verse is ʿošrām. The verse places wealth in the image of a crown: it is the substance that surrounds and marks the wise. Wisdom, material substance, and honor meet in this picture.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāšîr: rich, wealthy
עָשִׁיר
This related adjective names a person as wealthy, linking the quality of having riches with the wise people described here.
ʿōšer: wealth, riches
עֹשֶׁר
This related noun names the same substance that the verse calls the wise person’s crown.
THE PATTERN
The nature guiding a life becomes visible in what that life produces.
She sets a garland of favor on your head; a crown of beauty she shields you with.So every good tree makes good fruit, but the rotten tree makes evil fruit.But the wisdom that is from above is first set apart, then whole, gentle, and easy to yield to, full of faithful love and good fruits, undivided, and without a mask.THE THREAD
She sets a garland of favor on your head; a crown of beauty she shields you with.The same Hebrew root, עטר (ʿ-ṭ-r), meaning to surround or crown, appears in both verses. Proverbs 4:9 pictures wisdom giving the crown; Proverbs 14:24 names the wise person’s riches as that crown.
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