What Does Proverbs 28:21 Mean?
To regard faces is not good, for a piece of bread the strong man will rebel.
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
To have respect of persons is not good: for for a piece of bread that man will transgress.THE KEY
When a face can tilt judgment, even a morsel becomes enough to purchase a breach.
THE MEANING
You see favoritism as a form of exchange: one face receives weight while truth loses it, and the price may be only a piece of bread. The verse names the resulting breach without making its small reward an excuse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a small incentive makes compromised judgment insignificant.
THE ROOT
הַכֵּר
hakkēr
GROWS FROM
נכר
נכר (n-kh-r): recognize, distinguish, or mark as strange.
“regard faces” in this verse is hakkēr. The verse’s הַכֵּר (hakkēr, recognizing) פָּנִים (panim, faces) puts recognition itself under scrutiny. This root family also names what is foreign or strange, revealing how attention can single someone out, and let that distinction bend judgment.
ALSO GROWS
nokhrī: foreigner, stranger
נָכְרִי
The same consonants name someone marked as unfamiliar, echoing how a face can be singled out and treated differently.
nēkhār: foreignness, what is strange
נֵכָר
This noun carries the root’s sense of distinction, showing how recognition can divide people into categories.
יִפְשַׁע
yifshaʿ
GROWS FROM
פשע
Rebel, break away; commit a transgression.
“rebel” in this verse is yifshaʿ. יִפְשַׁע (yifshaʿ, he transgresses or rebels) names an active breach. Its root holds the tiny price beside the rupture itself, keeping the disproportion in view.
ALSO GROWS
peshaʿ: rebellion, transgression
פֶּשַׁע
The noun names the breach that the verb in this verse describes happening.
poshēaʿ: one who rebels or transgresses
פֹּשֵׁעַ
This participle names the person performing the act, keeping the verse’s focus on a human choice.
THE PATTERN
When people are judged by appearance or status, recognition bends into unequal treatment.
You shall not recognize faces in judgment; hear and respond to the small as well as the great; do not shrink from the face of man; for the judgment is God's; and the word that is too hard for you, draw it near to me, and I will hear and respond to it.These also are for the wise. It is not good to regard faces in judgment.But if you receive faces, you miss the mark, and are exposed by the instruction as those who step across.THE THREAD
You shall not recognize faces in judgment; hear and respond to the small as well as the great; do not shrink from the face of man; for the judgment is God's; and the word that is too hard for you, draw it near to me, and I will hear and respond to it.Its phrase “respect persons” translates תַכִּירוּ פָנִים (takkiru panim, show regard to faces), from נכר (n-kh-r, recognize or distinguish), the same root as Proverbs’ הַכֵּר (hakkēr, recognizing). The next clause, hearing the small and great alike, shows recognition without favoritism: a person’s face does not set the weight of the judgment.
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