What Does Proverbs 20:17 Mean?

Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth is filled with gravel.

Proverbs 20:17 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.

THE KEY

Falsehood can taste like bread at first, then turn the mouth that received it into a container for gravel.

THE MEANING

The verse speaks now: what seems nourishing while founded on falsehood can satisfy briefly, then leave the mouth occupied by what is harsh and useless. The same place that tastes the sweetness bears the grit of its aftermath.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A pleasant first taste does not prove that what I am taking in is good nourishment.

THE ROOT

שָׁקֶר

sheqer

GROWS FROM

שקר

Falsehood; acting falsely or dealing deceitfully.

The Hebrew word translated “deceit” names falsehood itself, while its verbal branch names the act of lying. The bread is falsehood made consumable: it seems to nourish, but the mouth ends up filled with grit.

ALSO GROWS

sheqer: Falsehood, a lie.

שֶׁקֶר

This is the noun used for the bread’s deceit; the apparent food is itself falsehood.

shaqar: To lie, act falsely, or deal deceitfully.

שָׁקַר

The verb shows deceit as an action: what is taken in as sweetness carries a falsehood whose consequence appears afterward.

THE PATTERN

A falsehood’s first sweetness can conceal an aftermath that exposes what it was feeding.

But he does not perceive that the dead are there; her called ones are in the depths of Sheol.

Proverbs 9:18 · SDVThe hidden ending is already inside the feast that seemed sweet in the preceding verse.

Choosing rather to share the rough handling of the people of God than to have the pleasure of falling short for a season.

Hebrews 11:25 · SDVThe pleasure is temporary, so its initial sweetness cannot tell the whole story.

What fruit did you have then in those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

Romans 6:21 · SDVThe aftermath reveals the fruit of what once seemed desirable.

THE THREAD

Lying lips make the LORD recoil, but those who work in trust are his delight.

Proverbs 12:22 · SDV

“Lying” here uses the same Hebrew word ⁨שֶׁקֶר⁩ (sheqer, falsehood) found in “bread of deceit.” The falsehood that seems sweet in Proverbs 20:17 is named here at the mouth as lying speech, connecting what is taken in with what comes out.

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