What Does Proverbs 23:18 Mean?
For surely there is a latter end, and your cord is not cut.
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
For surely there is an end; and thine expectation shall not be cut off.THE KEY
The “end” here is an afterward still waiting to arrive, and the hope reaching toward it remains unsevered.
THE MEANING
Your present does not contain the whole story: what comes afterward remains open, and your hope is not cut off. Even when something feels final, that feeling does not decide what is still ahead.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that delay or interruption proves the future is gone for good.
THE ROOT
אַחֲרִית
acharit
GROWS FROM
אחר
After, behind; what follows.
“latter end” in this verse is acharit. Acharit names what comes after, the later portion or outcome, so “end” can hold a future in view rather than merely a stop. The verse places that afterward beside expectancy: what lies ahead remains open.
ALSO GROWS
achar: After, behind.
אַחַר
This basic sense shows that the “end” is what follows.
acharon: Last, latter.
אַחֲרוֹן
This branch carries the sense of what comes later, giving the verse’s “end” a forward-facing dimension.
תִּקְוָה
tiqvah
GROWS FROM
קוה
To wait for, hope for, or expect.
“cord” in this verse is tiqvah. Tiqvah grows from a root of waiting and expectation, joining hope to an orientation toward what is still coming. The English “expectation” can sound like a thought; the root carries the waiting that holds that thought open.
ALSO GROWS
qovey: Those who wait or hope.
קוֹיֵי
Isaiah uses this form for those waiting for the LORD, showing the same root as an active orientation toward what is ahead.
qivviti: I wait or hope.
קִוִּיתִי
This first-person form in Psalm 130:5 shows hope as something held through waiting.
תִּכָּרֵת
tikkaret
GROWS FROM
כרת
To cut or sever.
The closing image is one of severance: expectancy is not cut away from the future. The same root appears in the phrase “cut a covenant,” so its reach includes a binding relation as well as a cutting; here, the promise is that hope is not severed.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: Cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
This phrase shows the root used for establishing a binding relation, adding depth to the verse’s image of what is or is not severed.
yikkaret: Be cut down or cut off.
יִכָּרֵת
Job uses this form for a tree cut down, yet its hope remains.
THE PATTERN
Hope can wait through an apparent ending because the future remains open.
Watch the whole one, and see the straight one, for the end of that man is wholeness.But those who wait upon the LORD exchange their strength; they rise on wings like eagles; they run and do not tire; they walk and do not faint.And hope does not put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Set-Apart Breath, which has been given to us.THE THREAD
For there is a cord for a tree; if it is cut down, it sprouts again, and its suckling shoot does not stop.Job uses tiqvah, the same Hebrew word for “hope,” and the same karat root behind “cut off” for the tree being cut down. The image makes the claim visible: a severing can be real without being the final word over what can still rise.
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