What Does Proverbs 21:2 Mean?
Every way of a man is straight in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the hearts.
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
Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.THE KEY
A path can look straight from inside your own eyes while the LORD measures the heart that chose it.
THE MEANING
Your sense that a way is right does not settle its whole measure. The LORD weighs the heart beneath your choices, reaching beyond what looks right from your own point of view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“If this way seems right to me, that proves it is right.”
THE ROOT
תֹכֵן
tōḵēn
GROWS FROM
תכן
To measure, weigh, or assess.
“weighs” in this verse is tōḵēn. The verb carries the sense of weighing or measuring, not only thinking something over. The heart has a true measure that a person’s own view cannot supply.
ALSO GROWS
takan: To measure or weigh.
תָּכַן
This verbal form makes the LORD’s action a weighing of the heart’s actual measure.
tochen: Measure or measurement.
תֹּכֶן
This related form brings out the standard or measure beneath the verse’s image of pondering.
יָשָׁר
yāšār
GROWS FROM
ישר
Straight, upright, or level.
The word pictures a way that appears straight. Each person sees a line that seems true from their own vantage, while the verse places that perception beside the LORD’s measure of the heart.
ALSO GROWS
yesharim: Upright people.
יְשָׁרִים
This form shows the root can describe uprightness itself, while the verse examines a person’s own judgment that their way is upright.
meysharim: Equity or straightness.
מֵישָׁרִים
This branch connects straightness with just measure, sharpening the contrast between what appears right and what is weighed.
דֶּרֶךְ
déreḵ
GROWS FROM
דרך
To tread or step; by extension, a path or way.
A way is a track made by steps. The person sees the track as right, while the LORD’s weighing reaches the heart from which those steps proceed.
ALSO GROWS
dāraḵ: To tread or step.
דָּרַךְ
The verb lets “way” be heard as a path formed through repeated steps.
déreḵ: Path or way.
דֶּרֶךְ
This noun names the path the person judges from their own point of view.
THE PATTERN
A person’s own perception can approve a path, while God’s seeing reaches the inner measure behind it.
All the ways of a person are clean in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the breaths.But the LORD said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, for I have pushed him away. The LORD does not see as the human sees. The human sees what is outside, but the LORD sees the heart.And he said to them, You are the ones who align yourselves before the faces of people, but God knows your hearts, for what is lifted up among people is a stench before the face of God.THE THREAD
All the ways of a person are clean in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the breaths.The Hebrew verb translated “weigheth” shares the root תכן with “pondereth” here. Proverbs 16:2 also names what is weighed as spirits, the inward breath, showing that the LORD’s measure reaches beyond the visible path.
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