What Does Proverbs 23:29 Mean?
Who has woe? Who has the outcry? Who has quarrels? Who has murmuring? Who has bruises for nothing? Who has eyes gone red?
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
Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?THE KEY
The repeated “Who hath?” reveals intoxication by the harm it spreads through grief, conflict, speech, injury, and the body.
THE MEANING
Grief, disputes, uncontrolled talk, needless wounds, and red eyes gather into one recognizable pattern. The next verse names the person who lingers over wine; this verse shows how that pattern reaches emotions, relationships, speech, and the body.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that drinking’s harm stays private or amounts only to a passing discomfort: the list includes conflict with others, disordered speech, and injury.
THE ROOT
מִדְיָנִים
midyanim
GROWS FROM
דין
to judge, contend, or plead a case
The word for contentions belongs to the language of judgment and disputing a case. The conflict here carries more than noisy disagreement: people become opponents who judge and contend with one another.
ALSO GROWS
dan: he judges
דָּן
This verb shows the root in action: contention moves people into the posture of judging one another.
din: judgment or a legal case
דִּין
This branch reveals the case-like edge inside the quarrels: each dispute can turn into accusation and taking sides.
THE PATTERN
Intoxication becomes visible as it disorders perception and carries harm outward into speech, judgment, and conduct.
Wine is a mocker, strong drink is roaring, and whoever reels in it is not wise.And these also stagger in wine, and reel in strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel in strong drink; they are swallowed by wine; they reel from the drink; they stagger in seeing; they stumble in judgment.And do not become drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the breath.THE THREAD
Those who linger long over wine, those who go searching out the mixed drink.The next verse answers the repeated question: it points to those who linger over wine and seek mixed wine. That answer gathers the grief, conflict, speech, wounds, and red eyes into a single portrait.
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