What Does Proverbs 15:12 Mean?
A scorner does not love the one who reproves him, nor does he go to the wise.
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 scorner loveth not one that reproveth him: neither will he go unto the wise.THE KEY
Contempt does more than reject a critic; it keeps wisdom itself at a distance.
THE MEANING
When contempt closes the ear to someone who corrects, wisdom becomes harder to reach. The verse speaks to the reader now: refusing correction also means turning away from a path toward the wise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you can reject the people who challenge you and still move toward wisdom.
THE ROOT
הוֹכֵחַ
hokheach
GROWS FROM
יכח
y-kh-ch
To prove, decide, or bring a matter under examination; in this form, to correct or reprove.
“reproveth” in this verse is hokheach. Correction carries the sense of bringing something into examination, where what is mistaken can be made clear. The scorner refuses the encounter that could expose the matter and open the way toward wisdom.
ALSO GROWS
tokhechah: Reproof, correction
תּוֹכֵחָה
This noun shows that the same root names the corrective encounter the scorner turns away from.
hokhiach: To prove, convince, or reprove
הוֹכִיחַ
The root can describe making a case clear, revealing what the verse’s rejected correction might bring into view.
חֲכָמִים
chachamim
GROWS FROM
חכם
ḥ-k-m
To be wise or skilled.
“wise” in this verse is chachamim. This word family names both wisdom and the person who embodies it, and it can carry the sense of practical skill. Wisdom is within reach in people the reader can approach; refusing that encounter leaves discernment unapproached.
ALSO GROWS
chokhmah: Wisdom, skill
חָכְמָה
The related noun shows that the wise person is connected to a practiced capacity, not merely an abstract idea.
chacham: A wise or skilled person
חָכָם
This singular form names the person the verse says the scorner will not approach.
THE PATTERN
The posture toward correction shapes whether wisdom can be received.
Do not reprove a scoffer, lest he hate you; reprove the wise one, and he will love you.Let the aligned one strike me in faithful love, and let him correct me. Oil for my head; let my head not turn from it. For still my prayer is in their calamities.All training, for the present, does not seem to be joy but pain; but afterward it gives back the wholesome fruit of alignment to those who have been exercised by it.THE THREAD
Do not reprove a scoffer, lest he hate you; reprove the wise one, and he will love you.Both verses use יכח (yakach, “to prove or reprove”) for correction. Proverbs 9:8 makes the contrast plain: the same corrective encounter meets hatred in the scorner and love in the wise.
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