What Does Proverbs 21:5 Mean?
The thoughts of the keen run only toward overflow, but every rushing one only toward emptiness.
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
The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want.THE KEY
Plenty is the margin that remains when plans are carried with care; haste tends to leave a shortage.
THE MEANING
The verse names a present pattern: plans carried with diligence tend toward surplus, while rushing tends toward shortage. Plenty is practical margin, what remains available, and “want” here is lack, not merely desire.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that moving faster is the surest way to have more: haste can produce lack, while considered work tends toward surplus.
THE ROOT
מַחְשְׁבוֹת
machashavot
GROWS FROM
חשב
To think, reckon, or devise.
The word translated “thoughts” is machashavot, from a root that also carries reckoning and design. These are not only private ideas; they are plans worked through, which the verse connects with what can accumulate.
ALSO GROWS
chashav: To think, reckon, or devise.
חָשַׁב
The verb shows that these thoughts can be active planning, not passing ideas.
cheshbon: An account or reckoning.
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This branch brings calculation into the root, fitting the verse’s contrast between considered plans and haste.
machashavah: A thought, plan, or design.
מַחֲשָׁבָה
The singular form makes the design within the plural “thoughts” visible.
מוֹתָר
motar
GROWS FROM
יתר
To remain, be left over, or have excess.
“overflow” in this verse is motar. The word translated “plenteousness” means surplus or remainder. Abundance here is what remains available; the verse sets that margin against the shortage named at its close.
ALSO GROWS
yether: Remainder or surplus.
יֶתֶר
This related word makes clear that plenty can mean what is left over.
yithron: Advantage or profit.
יִתְרוֹן
This branch shows how what remains can become a gain or advantage.
מַחְסוֹר
machsor
GROWS FROM
חסר
To lack, be missing, or be deficient.
“emptiness” in this verse is machsor. “Want” here names shortage, not simply desire. Its root sets what is missing directly against the surplus that remains, giving the verse a concrete contrast between lack and margin.
ALSO GROWS
chaser: Lacking or deficient.
חָסֵר
This form describes the state of having something missing.
chesron: Lack or deficiency.
חֶסְרוֹן
This noun makes the shortage in the verse’s ending explicit.
THE PATTERN
Considered plans and sustained effort tend to preserve a surplus, while haste and slackness tend toward lack.
The one who works with a slack hand grows poor; but the hand that digs makes rich.And the food shall be a store for the land against the seven years of hunger, which shall be in the land of Egypt, so that the land is not cut off through the hunger.For which of you, wanting to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it?THE THREAD
A person's heart plans his way, but the LORD sets his steps firm.“Deviseth” comes from the same root, חשב (chashav), as “thoughts” in Proverbs 21:5. One verse shows a way being designed; the other shows how such considered plans tend toward surplus when carried with diligence.
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