What Does Proverbs 15:7 Mean?
The lips of the wise scatter knowledge, but the heart of fools does not do so.
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 lips of the wise disperse knowledge: but the heart of the foolish doeth not so.THE KEY
Wisdom here is not a private store of knowledge but knowledge scattered beyond the one who holds it.
THE MEANING
Knowledge moves through wise lips into the shared world; wisdom appears as what is communicated, not only what is held within. The foolish heart does not make that outward passage, and the contrast is present wherever understanding either travels or stops.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that possessing knowledge is enough to make it wisdom: here, wisdom is seen in knowledge that leaves the lips.
THE ROOT
יְזָרוּ
yezaru
GROWS FROM
ז־ר־ה
z-r-h
To scatter or disperse; in agricultural use, to winnow by tossing grain.
“scatter” in this verse is yezaru. English can make “disperse” sound like mere distribution, but the Hebrew root carries the motion of scattering. Wisdom does not stay enclosed in its holder; it moves outward through speech.
ALSO GROWS
zarah: To scatter, strew, or winnow.
זָרָה
This verb is the seed of “disperse,” showing knowledge being put into motion.
mizreh: A winnowing fan or shovel.
מִזְרֶה
The tool named by the same root makes the image physical: scattering is an action that carries material outward.
דַּעַת
daʿat
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
y-d-ʿ
To know or perceive through encounter.
The word for knowledge grows from the verb “to know” or “to perceive.” The verse presents knowledge as something that can be shared through speech, not merely stored as information.
ALSO GROWS
yada: To know or perceive.
יָדַע
This verb is the root beneath “knowledge,” linking what the wise share to knowing formed through encounter.
madda: Knowledge or learning.
מַדָּע
This related word shows the same root extending into what is learned and understood.
שִׂפְתֵי
siftei
GROWS FROM
ש־פ־ה
sh-p-h
Lip or edge; the same noun also means language or speech.
Hebrew uses the same word for a lip, language, and the edge or shore of something. The wise lips are a threshold where what is held within becomes available to others.
ALSO GROWS
safah: Lip; also language or speech.
שָׂפָה
The word itself joins the mouth’s edge to the speech that passes from it.
sefat hayam: The shore or edge of the sea, literally “the lip of the sea.”
שְׂפַת הַיָּם
This phrase carries the same edge-image: the lips are where what is within meets the world beyond.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom becomes shared when knowledge moves outward through speech so others can receive it.
We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.But now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, what help will I be to you, unless I speak to you in an unveiling, or in knowing, or in prophecy, or in teaching?Let your word always be in favor, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you must answer each one.THE THREAD
Let us know; let us pursue to know the LORD. His going forth is set firm as the dawn, and he will come to us as the rain, as the late rain that pours on the earth.Hosea uses יָדַע (yada, know or perceive), the same root that becomes דַּעַת (daʿat, knowledge) in this proverb. That link opens the knowledge being shared as perception formed through encounter, something that continues to be entered into and pursued.
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