What Does Proverbs 21:4 Mean?
Lifted eyes and a wide heart, the plowing of the wicked, is missing the mark.
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
An high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.THE KEY
The verse calls the lifted gaze, the self-enlarged heart, and the wicked person’s work one and the same miss.
THE MEANING
When your gaze rises above others and your heart swells with self-importance, that posture reaches into what you cultivate. The verse names the whole pattern sin: a missing of the mark that begins in how you see and extends into what you do.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that productive work is automatically good: the plowing of the wicked receives the same verdict as the high look and proud heart.
THE ROOT
חַטָּאת
ḥaṭṭāʾt
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss, err, or fall short.
“is missing the mark” in this verse is ḥaṭṭāʾt. The verdict reaches beyond a single bad act: חַטָּאת grows from חטא, to miss. The raised gaze, enlarged heart, and wicked person’s labor are gathered under one name because each departs from right measure.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss, err, or sin.
חָטָא
This verb reveals the movement inside the verse’s verdict: the posture and work miss their mark.
ḥēṭʾ: A miss, error, or sin.
חֵטְא
This noun keeps the idea of missing visible beneath the familiar English word “sin.”
רְחַב־לֵב
reḥav-lev
GROWS FROM
רחב
To be broad, wide, or spacious.
“wide heart” in this verse is reḥav-lev. The proud heart is pictured as a broad heart, one that has expanded itself. The same root can describe a broad place or making room; beside the high gaze here, that breadth becomes self-enlargement.
ALSO GROWS
hirḥiv: To make wide or enlarge.
הִרְחִיב
The verb makes the image active: the heart’s breadth is an expansion of the self.
reḥov: A broad place or open square.
רְחֹב
The same root can name open space; here the neighboring high look shows that the heart’s breadth is turned toward self-exaltation.
רוּם עֵינַיִם
rûm ʿênayim
GROWS FROM
רום
To rise, be high, or exalt.
“lifted eyes” in this verse is rûm ʿênayim. The eyes are described through elevation: the gaze itself is raised. Pride becomes visible in the way a person looks before it is spoken aloud.
ALSO GROWS
rām: High or exalted.
רָם
It carries the same height that shapes the image of the elevated gaze.
romēm: To lift up or exalt.
רוֹמֵם
This branch makes the upward movement explicit: the gaze lifts the self above its measure.
THE PATTERN
Self-exaltation puts the inner posture and its work out of measure.
Everyone whose heart is lifted high is loathed by the LORD, and though hand joins hand, he does not come away clear.Though the LORD is lifted high, he sees the low ones, and the lofty he perceives from afar.But he gives greater favor. Therefore it says, God sets himself against those who lift themselves high, and gives favor to those made low.THE THREAD
If you do well, will you not be lifted up? And if you do not do well, falling short crouches at the door. Its reaching is toward you, and you shall rule over it.Both verses use חַטָּאת (ḥaṭṭāʾt), meaning “sin” or “missing.” Genesis gives this miss the image of something at the door; Proverbs names the lifted gaze, expanded heart, and wicked labor as already belonging to that same field.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us