What Does Proverbs 17:13 Mean?
Whoever repays evil for good, evil does not step away from his house.
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
Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.THE KEY
The Hebrew sets evil that is “returned” against evil that “will not move away”: what is repaid becomes a presence in the house.
THE MEANING
When good is answered with harm, the harm is described as staying in the one’s house. The verse makes the exchange more than a moment: evil returned for good is followed by evil that does not depart.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you can repay goodness with harm and keep the resulting evil outside your own home.
THE ROOT
מֵשִׁיב
meshiv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
To turn back or return.
The word rendered “rewardeth” carries the motion of returning: the person returns evil in place of good. The verse then says that evil will not move away from the house, setting return against departure.
ALSO GROWS
shav: Returns; turns back.
שָׁב
This form makes the root’s turning motion clear: the verse describes evil being sent back in response to good.
teshuvah: Return; turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun carries the same root idea of return, echoing the verse’s picture of an exchange that does not simply pass and disappear.
THE PATTERN
What a person sends into the world or measures out to others can return as a consequence in that person’s own life.
His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.Proverbs uses מֵשִׁיב (meshiv, returning) for the person who repays good with evil; Psalm 7:16 uses יָשׁוּב (yashuv, returns) for harm coming back upon its sender. Both turn on שׁוּב (shuv, return), giving the warning a sharper edge: what goes out can turn back.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us