What Does Proverbs 16:25 Mean?
There is a way that seems straight to a person, but what lies behind it is the ways of death.
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
There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.THE KEY
A path can look straight at the start and still carry the reader toward death.
THE MEANING
A course can look straight by human measure and still lead to death. Its apparent rightness at the outset does not reveal where it goes; the destination is part of the path’s truth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If a course looks right to me, its outcome must be good.
THE ROOT
דֶּרֶךְ
derekh
GROWS FROM
דרך
darak
To tread or step.
“a way” in this verse is derekh. English makes “way” sound like an abstract route, while its Hebrew root also means to tread. The way is a course being walked, and this verse sets its destination against how straight it appears.
ALSO GROWS
darak: To tread, step, or walk.
דָּרַךְ
The verb gives the way its rooted image: a path is a course of steps.
derekh: A road, way, or course.
דֶּרֶךְ
The noun names the course whose apparent straightness is tested by its end.
יָשָׁר
yashar
GROWS FROM
ישר
yashar
To be straight or level.
“seems straight to a person” in this verse is yashar. The word rendered “right” also carries the sense of being straight or level. The verse places that apparent straightness “before a man,” showing that what looks level from one’s perspective can still lead somewhere deadly.
ALSO GROWS
yashar: To be straight, level, or upright.
יָשַׁר
This verb shares the verse’s image of a course that appears straight.
meysharim: Uprightness, equity, or straightness.
מֵישָׁרִים
This noun shows how the same root can name straightness as a quality.
mishor: A level place or plain.
מִישׁוֹר
The level-ground sense makes the verse’s image of apparent rightness more concrete.
אַחֲרִיתָהּ
acharitah
GROWS FROM
אחר
achar
After or behind; what comes later.
“what lies behind it” in this verse is acharitah. The Hebrew word for “end” belongs to a root that also means “after.” The verse turns attention to what follows the first impression: the later outcome reveals what the course is carrying toward.
ALSO GROWS
achar: After or behind.
אַחַר
This basic form makes the root’s sense of what follows explicit.
acharon: Later, last, or afterward.
אַחֲרוֹן
This branch carries the same root sense of what comes after or at the end.
THE PATTERN
A path’s character is disclosed by where it leads, not by how straight it looks at the start.
There is a way straight before a man, but its latter end is the ways of death.What fruit did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and roomy is the way that leads to perishing, and many are those who go in through it.THE THREAD
For the LORD perceives the way of the aligned, but the way of the wicked loses its way.Psalm 1:6 uses the same Hebrew word, derekh, for the way of the righteous and the way that perishes. It makes the test in this verse visible: the course is known by where it arrives.
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