What Does Proverbs 19:24 Mean?
The slack one buries his hand in the dish, and will not turn it back even to his mouth.
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
A slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom, and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again.THE KEY
The image makes deprivation almost comic: nourishment is within reach, yet the hand refuses the return that would bring it to the mouth.
THE MEANING
Need can be within your reach while the movement that completes receiving what sustains you remains undone. The verse catches inertia at its absurd edge: even the hand-to-mouth motion stops halfway.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that passivity costs only other people dissolves here: the refusal reaches even the sluggard’s own mouth.
THE ROOT
יְשִׁיבֶנָּה
yeshivennah
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
turn back; return
“will not turn it back even to his mouth” in this verse is yeshivennah. The verb carries the sense of causing the hand to return, so the failure is not about access but about refusing the return movement. The same root can name turning back or turning away, showing how one movement can either restore contact or break it.
ALSO GROWS
teshuvah: return; turning back
תְּשׁוּבָה
This branch makes return a movement in its own right, the motion the hand in the proverb will not complete.
meshubah: backsliding; turning away
מְשׁוּבָה
The same root can describe movement away from return, giving the hand’s refusal a wider language of turning aside.
טָמַן
taman
GROWS FROM
טמן
t-m-n
hide; bury; conceal
“buries” in this verse is taman. The verb depicts more than a hand at rest: it is hidden or buried. This root also describes something stored out of sight, so the verse joins concealment with nourishment that is close enough to receive.
ALSO GROWS
tamun: hidden; concealed
טָמוּן
This form sharpens the image of the hand withdrawn from action, as though its capacity were tucked away.
matmon: hidden treasure; something stored away
מַטְמוֹן
The root can describe what is deliberately kept out of sight; here, what is concealed is the very movement needed to receive nourishment.
THE PATTERN
Withheld effort can turn what is within reach into lack, and its effects can spread beyond the moment.
The slack man does not roast his catch, but the wealth of the keen is weighty.Through much slackness the rafters sag, and through hands that let drop the house drips through.For even when we were with you, this we charged you, that if anyone will not work, neither let him eat.THE THREAD
Therefore say to them, Thus says the LORD of hosts, Turn to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will turn to you, says the LORD of hosts.The Hebrew verb behind “bring it ... again” shares its root with both instances of “turn” here. In the proverb, a small return is withheld; in Zechariah, return becomes reciprocal movement.
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