What Does Proverbs 21:22 Mean?
A wise one climbs the city of the mighty and brings down the strength it leans its full weight upon.
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 man scaleth the city of the mighty, and casteth down the strength of the confidence thereof.THE KEY
Wisdom can scale the mighty city and bring down the force of the confidence that makes it feel untouchable.
THE MEANING
When what surrounds you feels like a city of the mighty, wisdom can reach it; the strength of its certainty can be brought down. What seems secure because it is powerful is still vulnerable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a powerful position is safe from being overturned because it is sure of itself.
THE ROOT
מִבְטָחָהּ
mivṭāḥāh
GROWS FROM
בטח
b-ṭ-ḥ
To trust or feel secure.
“leans its full weight upon” in this verse is mivṭāḥāh. The Hebrew word means “its confidence” or “its security,” and shares its root with trusting and being secure. The verse makes that security’s own strength vulnerable: what the city leans on can itself be brought down.
ALSO GROWS
bāṭaḥ: Trust; be secure.
בָּטַח
The city’s confidence is a form of trust or security, not simply an appearance of strength.
mivṭāḥ: Security; refuge; confidence.
מִבְטָח
This related noun shows how the city’s felt safety belongs to the same root as its confidence.
גִּבּוֹרִים
gibbōrîm
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
To be strong or prevail.
The city’s “mighty ones” are named by a root of prevailing strength. That force is not beyond reach: wisdom enters the city and brings down the strength supporting its confidence.
ALSO GROWS
gāḇar: Be strong; prevail.
גָּבַר
The defenders’ might carries the sense of force that prevails, which the verse shows can be brought low.
geḇūrāh: Might; strength; valor.
גְּבוּרָה
This noun from the same root connects the city’s “mighty” with strength itself.
חָכָם
ḥākām
GROWS FROM
חכם
ḥ-k-m
To be wise or skillful.
“wise one” in this verse is ḥākām. The root carries wisdom as skillful knowing, not merely information held in the mind. Here the wise person acts: wisdom ascends into the city’s space and makes its security lose force.
ALSO GROWS
ḥokhmāh: Wisdom; skill.
חָכְמָה
The related noun names the capacity that acts through the wise person in the verse.
ḥākam: Be wise; act wisely.
חָכַם
This verbal form links wisdom to action, fitting the wise person’s active ascent into the city.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom can overturn a fortified power by exposing the limits of the confidence beneath it.
And there is found in it a poor wise man, and he slips the city free by his wisdom; yet no one remembers that same poor man.And all this assembly shall perceive that the LORD does not deliver with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hands.For the weapons of our campaign are not of the flesh, but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds.THE THREAD
And I say, wisdom is better than might, yet the poor man's wisdom is scorned, and his words are not heard.Proverbs calls the defenders גִּבּוֹרִים (gibbōrîm, mighty ones), from גבר (g-b-r, be strong or prevail); Ecclesiastes uses a noun from that same root for “strength.” The shared root sharpens the contrast: wisdom can undo prevailing might, even when people despise the wise person’s words.
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