What Does Proverbs 19:17 Mean?
Whoever lends to the LORD shows favor to the emptied one, and what his hands have done, he makes whole for 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
He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.THE KEY
A gift to the poor becomes a loan because the LORD names himself its receiver and payer.
THE MEANING
When you show favor to someone who has little, the verse says the LORD receives that gift as a loan. The return rests with the LORD, so the gift is not measured by whether its recipient can repay it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that giving to someone unable to repay is simply a one-way loss is undone: the verse names the LORD as borrower and payer.
THE ROOT
מַלְוֶה
malveh
GROWS FROM
לוה
To join or accompany; in this form, to lend.
“Whoever lends” in this verse is malveh. The Hebrew word for lending shares a root with joining and being joined. That gives the loan language a relational depth: the gift is not only transferred, but enters a bond the verse places before the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
lavah: To join or accompany.
לָוָה
In Genesis 29:34, Leah uses this verb when she says her husband will be joined to her; the same word family gives lending an echo of attachment.
Levi: Joined; the name is associated with the root לוה.
לֵוִי
Genesis 29:34 connects Leah’s hope of being joined to her husband with the name Levi, making the relational sense of the lending root audible.
חוֹנֵן
ḥōnēn
GROWS FROM
חנן
To show favor or act graciously.
“shows favor to” in this verse is ḥōnēn. The verb describes favor being shown, not only a feeling about someone in need. The verse’s attention rests on favor made tangible in a gift.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: Favor.
חֵן
The noun names the favor carried into action when someone gives to the poor.
ḥannun: Gracious; one who shows favor.
חַנּוּן
This related word describes a nature marked by favor, echoing the giver’s act of showing favor here.
יְשַׁלֶּם
yeshallem
GROWS FROM
שלם
To be whole or complete; to make complete, repay, or recompense.
“makes whole for him” in this verse is yeshallem. The repayment verb belongs to the same root family as shalom, “wholeness,” and shalem, “complete.” The return is concrete repayment, expressed in a word family that also carries the sense of bringing something to completion.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness.
שָׁלוֹם
The shared root places the verse’s language of repayment in the same word family as wholeness.
shalem: Whole or complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch preserves the root’s sense of completion and illuminates repayment as settling what is owed.
THE PATTERN
A gift offered to someone with little is counted as an act toward God, who answers where the recipient cannot repay.
The one who presses the emptied one taunts his Maker, but the one who gives him weight favors the poor.And you will be flourishing, for they cannot repay you; for you will be repaid at the standing up of the aligned.And the King answers and says to them, Truly, I say to you, Whatever you did to one of the least of these my brothers, you did to me.THE THREAD
And the King answers and says to them, Truly, I say to you, Whatever you did to one of the least of these my brothers, you did to me.Proverbs calls the gift a loan to the LORD; this verse names the human encounter as an encounter with the King. It opens the lending image as a relationship in which the poor person’s need is received by God himself.
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