What Does Proverbs 25:15 Mean?
By being slow to flare, a ruler is coaxed, and a soft tongue breaks the bone.
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
By long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone.THE KEY
Patience can persuade power, while softness carries enough force to break bone.
THE MEANING
Your patience can persuade even someone with power, and a soft tongue can break through what seems hardest. Gentleness here carries real force; it changes resistance through time and tenderness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that tenderness has no force and authority moves only under pressure. This verse shows patience and gentle speech moving what resists.
THE ROOT
רַכָּה
rakkāh
GROWS FROM
רכך
r-k-k
To be soft or tender.
The same root describes a tender heart as well as the soft tongue here. The verse gives that tenderness bone-breaking force, making softness an active power rather than a lack of strength.
ALSO GROWS
rakh levav: Tender of heart; fainthearted.
רַךְ לֵבָב
The root can describe an inward tenderness, showing that softness is a quality of the person as well as the voice.
rakhakh: To become soft or tender.
רָכַךְ
This verb form makes softness a change in condition, fitting the verse’s picture of resistance yielding.
יְפֻתֶּה
yefutteh
GROWS FROM
פתה
p-t-h
To entice, allure, or persuade.
“coaxed” in this verse is yefutteh. The verb also carries the sense of enticing or alluring, adding a coaxing shade to persuasion. Patience can draw agreement out over time.
ALSO GROWS
pātāh: To entice or persuade.
פָּתָה
This verb form shares the root’s sense of drawing someone toward agreement.
peti: A simple or easily influenced person.
פֶּתִי
This related form shows the root’s connection with being open to persuasion.
בְּאֹרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
bəʾorekh ʾappayim
GROWS FROM
ארך
ʾ-r-k
To be long or to lengthen.
The phrase literally pictures lengthened nostrils: anger takes longer to flare. Its image makes forbearance a lengthened interval before heat rises, matching the sense of being slow to flare.
ALSO GROWS
ʾorekh yamim: Length of days.
אֹרֶךְ יָמִים
The same root stretches time itself, linking patience with duration.
ʾārakh: To lengthen or become long.
אָרַךְ
This verb form shows the root’s basic movement: something is extended rather than cut short.
THE PATTERN
Patient restraint and gentle speech can quiet anger and move resistance.
A soft answer turns away the burning, but words of pain stir up the nostrils.If the breath of the ruler rises against you, do not leave your place; for healing lays down great shortcomings.Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
And the LORD passed by before his face, and called out, The LORD, The LORD God, compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, abounding in faithful love and truth,Exodus uses the same Hebrew phrase, אֹרֶךְ אַפַּיִם, describing the LORD as slow to flare. That shared root connects patience with power that can persuade without force.
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