What Does Proverbs 20:1 Mean?
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is roaring, and whoever reels in it is not wise.
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
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.THE KEY
Wine becomes the scoffer, strong drink the roar, and the drinker’s own direction the thing that slips.
THE MEANING
Wine’s mockery and strong drink’s roar can become an atmosphere that distorts your judgment. When you wander inside that noise, wisdom is already obscured.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that intoxication leaves your judgment and direction untouched is undone: the verse joins its uproar with losing your way.
THE ROOT
שֹׁגֶה
shogeh
GROWS FROM
שגה
shagah
To stray, wander, or err; by extension, to reel off course.
“reels” in this verse is shogeh. The word translated “deceived” also carries the image of straying or reeling. The verse shows the danger as a loss of direction within the drink, not only as being fooled by it.
ALSO GROWS
shagah: To stray, wander, or err.
שָׁגָה
This verb makes the loss of wisdom a movement off course.
shegagah: An inadvertent error or mistake.
שְׁגָגָה
This noun carries the same root sense of departure from the right way, even when the error is not deliberate.
הֹמֶה
homeh
GROWS FROM
המה
hamah
To roar, murmur, or make a tumult.
The root carries the sense of noisy tumult as well as roaring. Strong drink is pictured as an uproar that swells around the person and clouds clear judgment.
ALSO GROWS
hamah: To roar, murmur, or surge noisily.
הָמָה
This verb gives the drink’s “raging” the sound of an uproar.
hamon: A tumult, din, or multitude.
הָמוֹן
This related noun evokes a crowd’s noise, extending the image from a roar to confusion that fills the space.
לֵץ
lets
GROWS FROM
לוץ
luts
To scoff, mock, or deride.
“mocker” in this verse is lets. The verse gives wine the nature of a scoffer: its influence speaks against wise judgment. A related branch can also mean an interpreter, so the root holds both speech that carries meaning and speech turned toward mockery.
ALSO GROWS
latson: Scorn or mockery.
לָצוֹן
This noun names the derision that the verse personifies in wine.
melits: An interpreter or spokesperson.
מֵלִיץ
This related word shows the root’s connection to speech that carries meaning; here, that voice is cast as scoffing.
THE PATTERN
Intoxication turns an inviting drink into a force that distorts judgment and direction.
At its afterward it bites like a serpent, and like an adder it spreads itself out.And these also stagger in wine, and reel in strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel in strong drink; they are swallowed by wine; they reel from the drink; they stagger in seeing; they stumble in judgment.And do not become drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the breath.THE THREAD
And these also stagger in wine, and reel in strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel in strong drink; they are swallowed by wine; they reel from the drink; they stagger in seeing; they stumble in judgment.Isaiah uses שָׁגוּ (shagu, “they strayed/erred”), from the same שגה (shagah, “to stray or err”) root as Proverbs’ שֹׁגֶה (shogeh, “one who strays”). The single wanderer in Proverbs becomes a scene of people stumbling in vision and judgment: the drink’s roar has become disorientation.
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