What Does Proverbs 15:29 Mean?
The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears and responds to the prayer of the aligned one.
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 LORD is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous.THE KEY
The verse makes the LORD’s hearing a response to alignment, while wickedness meets distance.
THE MEANING
The LORD is far from those who make wickedness their way, yet he hears and responds to the prayer of the aligned. The verse holds distance and attentive nearness together, with the prayer inseparable from the life that gives it voice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that prayer is a technique whose words secure God’s attention regardless of the life they come from.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמָע
yishmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen; here, hear and respond.
“hears and responds” in this verse is yishmaʿ. The root carries more than sound reaching an ear: it can name attentive hearing that answers. The verse presents the LORD’s hearing as engaged attention toward the prayer.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen and respond.
שְׁמַע
The familiar call “Shema” uses the same root, joining hearing with response rather than mere reception.
shomeaʿ: One who hears or listens.
שֹׁמֵעַ
This participle shares the root and shows hearing as an active posture, the quality the verse attributes to the LORD toward prayer.
צַדִּיקִים
tsaddiqim
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
Rightness, justice, alignment.
“aligned one” in this verse is tsaddiqim. The righteous are people characterized by alignment, not merely people carrying a religious label. Their prayer rises from that alignment, which the verse places beside the LORD’s attentive response.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Rightness, justice, alignment.
צֶדֶק
This root noun names the quality carried by the “righteous” in the verse.
tsedaqah: Justice; right or aligned action.
צְדָקָה
This branch shows alignment taking form in action, connecting the person’s way of life with the prayer they offer.
רָחוֹק
rachōq
GROWS FROM
רחק
r-ḥ-q
Be distant; move away or put at a distance.
The verse names distance as a real contrast to the LORD’s hearing of the aligned person’s prayer. Its wording places the LORD far from the wicked, then turns to his attentive response to the righteous.
ALSO GROWS
richuq: Distance, separation.
רִחוּק
This noun from the same root makes the separation in “far” visible as a state of distance.
hirchiq: Move away; put at a distance.
הִרְחִיק
This verb shows the root’s movement away, adding force to the verse’s image of distance.
THE PATTERN
The LORD turns toward aligned prayer and sets himself against wickedness.
The eyes of the LORD are upon the aligned, and his ears are open to their cry.Speak your stumbles into the open to one another, and pray over one another, that you may be made whole. The asking of an aligned one, working within, is very strong.For the eyes of the LORD are upon the aligned, and his ears are open to their pleading; but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil.THE THREAD
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.The word “heareth” shares the root שָׁמַע (shamaʿ, hear and respond) with Proverbs 15:29. Psalm 34:17 opens the movement further: the righteous cry, the LORD hears, and deliverance follows.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us