What Does Proverbs 20:26 Mean?
A wise king winnows the restless, and turns the wheel over them.
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 wise king scattereth the wicked, and bringeth the wheel over them.THE KEY
The king’s wisdom is a winnowing that does not stop at separation: it turns the threshing wheel over the wicked.
THE MEANING
When wisdom rules, it does not leave the wicked intermixed: it scatters them and brings the threshing wheel over them. The image is severe; discernment becomes crushing judgment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wise rule only identifies wickedness but leaves it in place; here discernment acts against it.
THE ROOT
מְזָרֶה
mezareh
GROWS FROM
ז־ר־ה
z-r-h
To scatter or winnow.
“winnows” in this verse is mezareh. This pictures a winnower, separating what is wicked as chaff is separated from grain. The king’s action begins with sorting, not indiscriminate force.
ALSO GROWS
zoreh: One who winnows.
זֹרֶה
The verse uses this same winnowing image for the king’s action.
mizreh: A winnowing shovel or fan.
מִזְרֶה
The tool shows that scattering here is a deliberate separation, not random dispersal.
וַיָּשֶׁב
wayyashev
GROWS FROM
שׁ־ו־ב
sh-v-b
To turn or return; in a causative form, to bring back or turn something.
The verb behind “bringeth” carries the motion of turning or returning. Beside the wheel, it makes the judgment physical: after winnowing, the king turns the threshing wheel over them.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: To turn or return.
שׁוּב
Its basic motion brings a turning action into the image of the wheel.
teshuvah: A return or turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
The same root can name a turning; here, the turn is the wheel of judgment over the wicked.
רְשָׁעִים
resha'im
GROWS FROM
ר־ש־ע
r-sh-ʿ
To act wickedly or be guilty.
“restless” in this verse is resha'im. The word names people as wicked or guilty, not merely as scattered outsiders. The king’s winnowing does not erase that judgment; it leads into the severe action that follows.
ALSO GROWS
rasha: A wicked or guilty person.
רָשָׁע
The verse identifies the people being separated as culpable.
resha: Wickedness or guilt.
רֶשַׁע
The shared root ties the king’s judgment to the wrongdoing named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Wise judgment separates the wicked from what can remain and subjects them to decisive judgment.
The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the breath blows away.Whose winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean his threshing floor, and gather the wheat into the barn; but the chaff he will burn up with fire that cannot be put out.A king who sits upon the throne of judgment winnows away all evil with his eyes.THE THREAD
A king who sits upon the throne of judgment winnows away all evil with his eyes.Both verses use מזרה (mezareh), from the root זרה (zarah), meaning to scatter or winnow. Proverbs 20:8 shows the king’s judgment beginning with discernment; this verse adds the threshing wheel that follows.
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