What Does Proverbs 30:13 Mean?
There is a generation, how high are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted.
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
There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up.THE KEY
The doubled image makes pride visible: the whole gaze rises above others.
THE MEANING
This verse names a collective posture still present now: a generation can make superiority part of the way it sees. Its eyes and eyelids both rise, turning self-exaltation into a visible gaze. The verse exposes that height as haughtiness, not clear sight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that looking down from a higher place means seeing more clearly; here, the elevated gaze reveals arrogance.
THE ROOT
רָמוּ
rāmû
GROWS FROM
רום
To rise, be high, or be exalted.
“high” in this verse is rāmû. The verse’s word for lofty belongs to the root of rising and height. The same root appears in words for what is lifted up, showing how the image of elevation runs through the line and settles specifically in the eyes.
ALSO GROWS
rām: High or elevated.
רָם
This is the same language of height that makes the gaze in the verse feel raised above others.
terumah: A lifted portion or contribution.
תְּרוּמָה
The root can describe something raised up; here, the height belongs to a person’s gaze.
יִנָּשֵׂאוּן
yinnāśəʾûn
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
“lifted” in this verse is yinnāśəʾûn. This verb shares a root with words for carrying and being raised. The eyelids are pictured as borne upward, making haughtiness more than an inward opinion: it becomes a sustained posture of looking down.
ALSO GROWS
nāśāʾ: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This root holds both lifting and carrying, so the eyelids’ upward position feels like an assumed posture the generation bears.
nāśîʾ: A leader or chief.
נָשִׂיא
This related word can name one elevated to a position; the verse shows elevation turned into a proud way of seeing.
THE PATTERN
Self-exaltation raises the gaze, but Scripture repeatedly brings human pride low.
A Song of degrees of David. LORD, my heart is not lifted high, nor are my eyes raised. I do not walk in great things, nor in wonders beyond my reach.The lifted eyes of man shall be brought low, and the heights of men shall bow down, and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.I tell you, this man went down to his house aligned, rather than the other, for everyone who lifts himself up will be brought low, and the one who lowers himself will be lifted up.THE THREAD
The lifted eyes of man shall be brought low, and the heights of men shall bow down, and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.Isaiah names the fate of the height Proverbs sees in the eyes: human loftiness is brought down. The only exaltation that stands is the LORD’s.
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