What Does Proverbs 16:18 Mean?
Swelling goes before breaking, and a breath lifted high goes before a stumbling.
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
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.THE KEY
Two Hebrew images of height stand before breakage and stumbling: the collapse begins in the very elevation that seems to promise strength.
THE MEANING
Pride and an elevated inner life lead toward fracture and stumbling. When you rise above others in your own regard, that height does not secure you; it precedes the loss of footing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that standing above others gives you firmer ground dissolves here: self-exaltation leads toward broken footing.
THE ROOT
גָּאוֹן
gaon
GROWS FROM
גאה
ga'ah
Rise, be high, be exalted.
“swelling” in this verse is gaon. Pride is loftiness, from a root meaning to rise or be high. The neighboring word for haughty also means high, so both clauses place elevation before the break and the fall.
ALSO GROWS
ga'ah: To rise or be exalted.
גָּאָה
It shows pride as an upward movement, the height that precedes collapse.
ga'avah: Pride or arrogance.
גַּאֲוָה
This related noun makes clear that the root’s upwardness can become self-exaltation.
גָּבֹהַּ
gavoah
GROWS FROM
גבה
gavah
Be high, rise, be elevated.
“breath lifted high” in this verse is gavoah. The word for haughty describes רוּחַ (ruach, breath) as high: the inner breath is pictured as elevated. Its root differs from the one behind pride, yet the two words converge on the same image of rising before a fall.
ALSO GROWS
gavah: To be high or grow tall.
גָּבַהּ
It reveals the height contained in the description of the haughty spirit.
gobah: Height or elevation.
גֹּבַהּ
It makes the shared image explicit: the verse links inward elevation with what follows.
שֶׁבֶר
shever
GROWS FROM
שבר
shavar
Break, fracture, shatter.
“breaking” in this verse is shever. The consequence rendered destruction is pictured as breakage. Beside it, the fall is a loss of footing, so the verse moves from fracture to stumbling after its images of height.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
The verb gives destruction the concrete image of something breaking apart.
shavur: Broken or shattered.
שָׁבוּר
This branch names the resulting state that follows the break.
THE PATTERN
Self-exaltation leads to being brought low, while humility precedes honor.
When boiling comes, then shame comes, but wisdom is with the lowly.For everyone who lifts himself will be brought low; and the one who lowers himself will be lifted up.But he gives greater favor. Therefore it says, God sets himself against those who lift themselves high, and gives favor to those made low.THE THREAD
Before breaking, the heart of a man lifts high, and before weight comes bowing.The shared root גבה (gavah, be high) links the haughty spirit here with the haughty heart there. Proverbs 18:12 also sets humility before honor, revealing the opposite movement.
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