What Does Proverbs 17:20 Mean?
He who has a crooked heart finds no good, and the one with a tongue of twistings falls into 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
He that hath a froward heart findeth no good: and he that hath a perverse tongue falleth into mischief.THE KEY
A crooked heart leaves good unfound, while a tongue turned out of course carries its speaker into harm.
THE MEANING
The verse holds two distortions together: an inward bentness that fails to find good, and speech turned in its course that falls into harm. What is crooked within and what comes out through the tongue both shape where a person ends up.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that inner distortion stays private or that words are weightless: the heart misses good, and the turned tongue leads into harm.
THE ROOT
עִקֵּשׁ
ʿiqqēš
GROWS FROM
עקש
To be crooked or twisted.
“crooked heart” in this verse is ʿiqqēš. The Hebrew describes the heart as crooked, a bentness that shapes what it can find. The same root can describe crooked ways and the act of making a path crooked, linking inner orientation with the course a person follows.
ALSO GROWS
ʿiqqĕšîm: Crooked
עִקְּשִׁים
In Proverbs 2:15, this same root describes ways, carrying the image of crookedness from the heart into a person’s path.
məʿaqqēš: Making crooked; perverting
מְעַקֵּשׁ
In Proverbs 10:9, the root describes someone making his ways crooked, showing the bentness as something that shapes a course.
נֶהְפָּךְ
nehpākh
GROWS FROM
הפך
To turn or overturn.
“a tongue of twistings” in this verse is nehpākh. The word rendered “perverse” carries the sense of being turned. Beside the crooked heart, the turned tongue shows distortion in two forms: a bent inner orientation and speech turned out of course.
ALSO GROWS
hāphakh: To turn or overturn
הָפַךְ
This verb is the seed of the verse’s description of the tongue as turned.
mahpekhāh: Overthrow; destruction
מַהְפֵּכָה
This noun shows how the same root can name an overturning with damaging consequences, resonating with the verse’s fall into harm.
THE PATTERN
What is crooked within or turned in speech shapes a person’s path and can end in harm.
Whose ways are crooked, and they turn aside in their tracks.He who walks in wholeness walks securely, but he who twists his ways is known.And the tongue is fire, a world of crookedness. It is set among our limbs, staining the whole body and setting the wheel of becoming ablaze, and it is lit by Gehenna.THE THREAD
Whose ways are crooked, and they turn aside in their tracks.“Crooked” comes from עקש, the same root as “froward” in this verse. Proverbs 2:15 carries that bentness from the heart into a person’s ways and paths, making the connection between inner orientation and outward course visible.
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