What Does Proverbs 26:10 Mean?
As one who pierces all, so he who hires the thick-headed, and hires those who cross over.
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
The great God that formed all things both rewardeth the fool, and rewardeth transgressors.THE KEY
The Hebrew word behind both instances of “rewardeth” can also mean “hires,” so the verse holds recompense and appointment together.
THE MEANING
The one who forms all things holds the fool and the boundary-crosser within the reach of consequence. The repeated word for reward also carries the sense of wages or hiring, giving the verse a picture of what is assigned as well as what is paid.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that foolishness or boundary-crossing puts someone beyond the reach of the Creator’s ordering.
THE ROOT
שֹׂכֵר
sokher
GROWS FROM
שכר
ś-k-r
To hire or pay wages.
“hires” in this verse is sokher. The Hebrew repeats the same hiring word for the fool and for the transgressors. “Rewardeth” can sound like payment after the fact; the root also evokes hiring someone and assigning them a place or work, bringing recompense and appointment into the same image.
ALSO GROWS
śākār: Wages, reward
שָׂכָר
This noun from the same root makes the payment sense of “rewardeth” concrete.
śākhîr: A hired worker
שָׂכִיר
This branch brings out the sense of someone being taken into service, which echoes the verse’s repeated hiring language.
עֹבְרִים
ʿovrim
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
To cross over or pass beyond.
“those who cross over” in this verse is ʿovrim. The word translated “transgressors” carries the image of people crossing over or passing beyond. It gives transgression a spatial shape: a crossing of a boundary, not merely a label for a person.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To cross over, pass through
עָבַר
The verb makes visible the movement contained in the description “transgressors.”
ʿēver: Beyond, across
עֵבֶר
This related noun preserves the sense of crossing to the other side or beyond a limit.
THE PATTERN
What a person sets in motion through their work returns to them in keeping with what they have done.
And yours, O Lord, is faithful love, for you repay each man according to his deed.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
And Laban said to Jacob, Because you are my brother, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what will your wages be?“Wages” here comes from the same שכר (ś-k-r), meaning “hire,” root behind “rewardeth” in Proverbs. The shared root opens the verse’s reward as something with the texture of wages and service, not only an abstract return.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us