What Does Proverbs 16:7 Mean?
When a person's ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies whole with him.
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
When a man’s ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.THE KEY
The LORD’s peace here is not merely an enemy growing quiet; it is hostility being brought toward wholeness.
THE MEANING
When your ways please the LORD, even an enemy can be brought into peace with you. The verse presents that change as the LORD’s work, and its peace carries the sense of wholeness, not merely a pause in conflict.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an enemy’s hostility must be permanent or that peace depends entirely on your power to win them over.
THE ROOT
יַשְׁלִם
yashlim
GROWS FROM
שׁ־ל־ם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete; in a causative form, to make whole or bring to peace.
“whole with him” in this verse is yashlim. “At peace” can sound like a ceasefire, but yashlim comes from the same root as shalom, wholeness and well-being. The verse pictures the LORD bringing even an enemy relationship toward wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being, peace.
שָׁלוֹם
This is the familiar word for peace, showing the deeper texture of what the LORD brings about between the person and their enemies.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes visible the shared root’s sense of completeness beneath the peace described in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Ways shaped by God open relationships toward peace, so opposition need not have the last word.
Her ways are ways of sweetness, and all her paths are wholeness.Turn aside from evil and do good; seek wholeness and pursue it.If it is possible, as far as your reach extends, live in wholeness with all people.THE THREAD
You will keep in wholeness upon wholeness the one whose shaped mind rests upon you, for in you he leans his full weight.“Perfect peace” renders the doubled Hebrew shalom, from the same root as yashlim in Proverbs 16:7. Isaiah shows this peace as sustained wholeness; Proverbs extends it into a relationship with an enemy.
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