What Does Proverbs 16:1 Mean?
The laying out of the heart is for humankind; the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.
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 preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.THE KEY
The heart can arrange its inner thoughts, but the answer that reaches the tongue has a source the heart does not control.
THE MEANING
Your heart arranges intentions, yet the words that finally meet the moment do not come from your planning alone. The verse holds both human inward preparation and the LORD as the source of the tongue’s answer. Speech is where your own arranging meets a source beyond you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that every answer you speak is entirely your own achievement.
THE ROOT
מַעַרְכֵי
maʿarkhê
GROWS FROM
ערך
Arrange, set in order, draw up.
“laying out” in this verse is maʿarkhê. The word pictures the heart arranging an inner array, not merely having a passing thought. That arrangement belongs to the person, while the verse locates the tongue’s answer in the LORD, keeping intention and utterance related but distinct.
ALSO GROWS
ʿārakh: Arrange or set in order.
עָרַךְ
The root makes the heart’s preparation an act of arranging what is within.
maʿărākhāh: An array or formation.
מַעֲרָכָה
This branch makes the inner arrangement vivid: the heart lines up its thoughts like an ordered formation.
ʿārūkh: Arranged or prepared.
עָרוּךְ
The prepared state grows from the same root as the heart’s arranging, showing preparation as an ordering of what is already there.
THE PATTERN
Human intention is real, yet the answer and outcome are not under human control alone.
A person's heart plans his way, but the LORD sets his steps firm.Many plans are in the heart of a man, but the counsel of the LORD, it will stand.For it is not you who speak, but the breath of your Father speaking in you.THE THREAD
A man has joy in the answer of his mouth, and a word in its season, how good it is!The two verses use the same Hebrew word for “answer,” directly linking the LORD as its source with the joy of its timely arrival. The answer is not only spoken; when it meets its moment, it becomes good.
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