What Does Proverbs 16:6 Mean?
By faithful love and truth the crookedness is covered, and by the awe of the LORD a person turns aside from harm.
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
By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.THE KEY
The verse’s “purged” grows from the root “cover”: faithful love and truth cover crookedness, while awe of the LORD turns a person away from evil.
THE MEANING
What is crooked in you now is met by faithful love and truth, and awe of the LORD turns your direction away from evil. The verse holds covering and turning together: the wrong is addressed, and the path changes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that turning from evil requires terror: when the LORD is the object, fear carries awe, and this awe accompanies a changed direction.
THE ROOT
יְכֻפַּר
yekhuppar
GROWS FROM
כפר
k-p-r
Cover; cover over.
The verb rendered “purged” comes from כפר (kaphar, “cover”). In this word family, covering and atonement share a seed, so the verse describes crookedness as met and covered through faithful love and truth.
ALSO GROWS
kipper: Cover; make atonement.
כִּפֶּר
This verb shares the root of “purged,” showing the connection between covering and atonement.
kapporet: Cover; the ark’s cover, or mercy seat.
כַּפֹּרֶת
This concrete “cover” keeps the root’s image visible beneath the verse’s language of purging.
יִרְאַת
yirat
GROWS FROM
ירא
y-r-ʾ
Fear, revere, stand in awe.
With the LORD as the one revered, this word carries awe, not merely panic. The verse joins that awe to turning away from evil, making reverence a direction-setting posture.
ALSO GROWS
yare: To fear, revere, stand in awe.
יָרֵא
With the LORD as the object, this word family allows “fear” to carry awe rather than panic.
mora: Dread, reverence, awe.
מוֹרָא
This related noun shows that the root can describe reverence as well as fear.
אֱמֶת
emet
GROWS FROM
אמן
ʾ-m-n
Be firm, steady, reliable.
The root family joins truth to firmness and trust. Alongside faithful love, the covering in this verse rests on what is steady and dependable.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: Trust; lean your full weight on.
אֱמוּנָה
This branch links truth with trusting what is firm and dependable.
Amen: A firm affirmation; an affirmation of what is true.
אָמֵן
The familiar word Amen carries the same root’s sense of firmness and reliability.
THE PATTERN
Faithful love and truth meet what is crooked, while awe of the LORD and divine goodness turn a person away from evil.
Faithful love and truth meet; alignment and wholeness kiss.Do not be wise in your own eyes. Be in awe of the LORD, and turn aside from harm.Or do you look down upon the fullness of his kindness, and the holding back, and the slowness to heat, not perceiving that the kindness of God leads you to turning?THE THREAD
For I delight in faithful love and not slaughter, and the knowledge of God more than the ascending offerings.The word translated “mercy” in Hosea is חֶסֶד (chesed, faithful love), the same word at the start of Proverbs 16:6. Hosea places this faithful love beside knowing God, while Proverbs joins it with truth as what covers crookedness.
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