What Does Proverbs 25:21 Mean?
If the one who hates you hungers, feed him bread; and if he thirsts, give him water to drink.
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
If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:THE KEY
The person who hates you still has a body whose hunger and thirst matter.
THE MEANING
Hostility and bodily need occupy the same moment: the one who hates you receives bread and water from you. The verse addresses you now, placing ordinary provision across the divide between you and an enemy.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that someone’s hostility cancels their claim on ordinary care.
THE ROOT
הַאֲכִילֵהוּ
ha’akhilehu
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
To eat or consume.
“feed him bread” in this verse is ha’akhilehu. The Hebrew verb means more than handing over bread: it puts eating itself at the center of the response. The enemy’s hunger meets actual nourishment, without a change of heart being named as a condition.
ALSO GROWS
ʾakhal: to eat
אָכַל
The verb names the act the hungry person needs and the speaker makes possible.
ma’akhal: food
מַאֲכָל
This branch carries the root from eating to what sustains the eater.
שֹׂנַאֲךָ
sone’akha
GROWS FROM
שנא
ś-n-ʾ
To hate.
“the one who hates you” in this verse is sone’akha. The Hebrew calls this person “your hater,” naming the hostility between you directly. That same person is described as hungry and thirsty: the relationship does not erase the bodily need in front of you.
ALSO GROWS
sane: to hate
שָׂנֵא
The verb names the hostility carried in “your hater.”
sin’ah: hatred
שִׂנְאָה
This noun makes the feeling explicit, while the verse turns its attention to hunger and thirst.
THE PATTERN
Concrete care crosses the boundary created by hostility.
If you come upon your enemy's ox or his donkey wandering, you shall surely return it to him.But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Highest, for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil.So if your enemy hungers, feed him. If he thirsts, give him drink, for by doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head.THE THREAD
So if your enemy hungers, feed him. If he thirsts, give him drink, for by doing this you will heap coals of fire upon his head.Romans 12:20 repeats the verse’s exact pattern of feeding and giving drink to an enemy, then adds the image of coals of fire. It keeps the response concrete while showing that hostility is met without being returned.
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