What Does Proverbs 26:13 Mean?
The slack one says, "There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the wide places."
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 slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.THE KEY
The lion fills both the road and the open square, until no space seems passable.
THE MEANING
This verse shows how a warning can spread from the path to the streets until everywhere seems dangerous. Fear can make remaining still sound like prudence, even when the danger is only being named, not shown.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that every blocked step proves the world is impassable: sometimes the warning itself is how avoidance speaks.
THE ROOT
הָרְחֹבוֹת
ha-rechovot
GROWS FROM
רחב
To be broad or spacious.
“wide places” in this verse is ha-rechovot. The Hebrew word for “streets,” הָרְחֹבוֹת (ha-rechovot, the broad places), comes from רָחַב (rachav, to be broad or spacious). The lion is named not only on the road but in the places where space opens; fear fills even spaciousness with obstruction.
ALSO GROWS
rechov: A broad place or street.
רְחֹב
This is the singular form behind the verse’s “streets,” linking the claimed danger to open space.
merchav: A wide, open place or expanse.
מֶרְחָב
It carries the same root of spaciousness and appears in the connected verse as “a large place.”
THE PATTERN
Perceived danger can become a reason to withhold movement, even when the next act remains possible.
The sluggard says, There is a lion in the open; I will be killed in the streets.Whoever watches the breath does not sow; whoever looks upon the clouds does not reap.And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Behold, there you have what is yours.THE THREAD
He brings me out into a broad place; he pulls me loose, because he delights in me.The “large place” is מֶרְחָב (merchav, a broad place), from רָחַב (rachav, to be broad or spacious), the same root behind “streets” in this verse. Here, the open place is crowded with a lion; in the psalm, being brought into spaciousness is itself deliverance.
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