What Does Proverbs 21:13 Mean?
Whoever stops up his ear to the cry of the emptied one also cries out, and is not answered.
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
Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.THE KEY
The final “heard” means “answered”: the response refused to the poor becomes the speaker’s own unanswered cry.
THE MEANING
Your refusal to answer another’s cry does not remain a private act; the verse names it as the shape your own cry will meet. You stand inside the same world of response you help create.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you can refuse the poor’s plea while still expecting your own to be answered.
THE ROOT
יֵעָנֶה
yēʿāneh
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
Answer, respond.
“is not answered” in this verse is yēʿāneh. The Hebrew word translated “heard” means “answered,” so the consequence is relational: the speaker calls and receives no response. Psalm 118:5 uses this same root for a cry that is answered and set in a spacious place.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānâ: To answer or respond.
עָנָה
This verb names the response withheld from the poor and later withheld from the speaker.
maʿăneh: An answer or response.
מַעֲנֶה
The related noun makes clear that the verse concerns a reply, not simply whether someone hears a sound.
אֹטֵם
ʾōṭēm
GROWS FROM
אטם
ʾ-ṭ-m
Stop up, close, seal.
“stops up” in this verse is ʾōṭēm. The verse pictures more than failing to notice: the ear is deliberately closed against the outcry. The later unanswered call mirrors that chosen closure.
ALSO GROWS
ʾōṭēm: One who closes or stops up.
אֹטֵם
This is the form describing the person who closes their ear to the poor.
ʾāṭûm: Closed or sealed.
אָטוּם
This related form carries the image of an ear made inaccessible to another’s plea.
זְעָקָה
zeʿāqāh
GROWS FROM
זעק
z-ʿ-q
Cry out, call for help.
The poor person’s cry is a plea for help, not a casual sound. English uses “cry” again for the speaker’s later call, while Hebrew uses a different verb there, קָרָא (qārāʾ, call out), sharpening the reversal between the two scenes.
ALSO GROWS
zāʿaq: To cry out or call for help.
זָעַק
This verb gives the poor person’s cry its urgent, pleading force.
zeʿāqāh: An outcry or cry for help.
זְעָקָה
This noun names the plea the person chooses to shut out.
THE PATTERN
A person’s treatment of another’s plea becomes the measure of the response they receive.
Whoever gives to the crushed shall not lack, but whoever shuts his eyes shall have many curses.For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.For judgment will be without faithful love for the one who did not show such love, and faithful love boasts over judgment.THE THREAD
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.The same Hebrew root, ענה (ʿānâ, answer or respond), appears in “answered me.” Here the cry receives an answer and moves from distress into a large place; Proverbs 21:13 shows the cost of closing oneself to another’s cry.
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