What Does Proverbs 25:26 Mean?
An aligned one who trembles before the wicked is like a trampled spring and a fouled well.
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
A righteous man falling down before the wicked is as a troubled fountain, and a corrupt spring.THE KEY
When the aligned person loses footing before wickedness, the source itself becomes polluted, affecting everyone who draws from it.
THE MEANING
When your alignment gives way before wickedness, the image shows your clarity clouding like a fountain trampled into mud. What flows from that source reaches others, so the damage does not remain private.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that losing footing before wickedness harms only the person who yields dissolves here: the source itself becomes troubled, affecting everyone who draws from it.
THE ROOT
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
to be right or aligned
“aligned one” in this verse is tsaddiq. The verse describes the person by their alignment, then measures that alignment by the condition of the spring. Inner alignment is pictured as a source whose clarity affects everyone who draws from it.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: rightness, justice, alignment
צֶדֶק
This branch makes clear that righteousness carries the sense of being aligned.
tsedaqah: justice, right conduct
צְדָקָה
This branch shows alignment taking form in how a person’s life affects others.
נִרְפָּשׂ
nirpas
GROWS FROM
רפש
r-p-sh
to trample or stir into mud
“troubled” in this verse is nirpas. The fountain’s trouble carries the sense of water trampled into mud, with its clarity clouded at the source. The image makes the aligned person’s collapse consequential for everyone who drinks from that spring.
ALSO GROWS
raphash: to trample or stir up
רָפַשׁ
This verb evokes the disturbance that muddles the fountain.
rephesh: mud, mire
רֶפֶשׁ
This branch names the muddy result: the source has lost its clarity.
מָט
mat
GROWS FROM
מוט
m-w-t
to totter, slip, or be shaken
“trembles” in this verse is mat. The verb carries the sense of footing giving way before wickedness. The fountain image makes that loss of footing consequential: it unsettles a source from which others drink.
ALSO GROWS
mot: to totter or slip
מוֹט
This branch emphasizes the loss of stability contained in the image of falling.
yamut: he will totter or be shaken
יָמוּט
This verbal form extends the image of instability to what happens under pressure.
THE PATTERN
The condition of a source determines whether what flows from it gives life or becomes polluted.
The mouth of the aligned is a well of life, but violence covers the mouth of the restless.And as for my flock, they eat what your feet have trampled, and they drink what your feet have muddied.Does the same spring gush from the same opening, the sweet and the bitter?THE THREAD
The mouth of the aligned is a well of life, but violence covers the mouth of the restless.Both verses connect the aligned person with a water source: here the source is muddied when the person loses footing, while there it is a well of life. Together they show that alignment shapes what can flow through a person.
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