What Does Proverbs 30:26 Mean?
The conies are a folk not strong, and they set their houses in the cliff.
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 conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks;THE KEY
The weak do not become strong; they place their home within what is strong.
THE MEANING
Your lack of strength does not cancel the possibility of a secure dwelling: the conies are called a people without might, yet their home is set within rock. The verse locates durability in what bears the home, not in the power of those living inside it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that safety belongs only to the strong: even a people without might can dwell securely in the rock.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשִׂימוּ
wayyāśîmû
GROWS FROM
שים
ś-y-m
To put, set, or place.
The Hebrew verb means “they set” or “they placed,” so the verse focuses on where the conies put their home, not on how they construct it. The same root appears in שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם (śîmû levavkhem, “set your hearts”): here, the setting is concrete, their home is placed in rock.
ALSO GROWS
śām: Placed or set something in position.
שָׂם
It shares the verse’s root and makes the act of locating the home explicit.
śîmû levavkhem: Direct your attention; attend carefully.
שִׂימוּ לְבַבְכֶם
The root can describe placing attention as well as an object; here it places the conies’ physical dwelling.
סֶלַע
sela
GROWS FROM
סלע
s-l-ʿ
Rock or cliff.
“cliff” in this verse is sela. The verse’s rock is the conies’ actual shelter, not merely a picture of strength. Psalm 104:18 repeats the same root for “rocks” and explicitly calls them a refuge for the conies.
ALSO GROWS
sela: A rock or rocky cliff.
סֶלַע
This is the singular form in the verse: the conies place their home in the rock.
sela'im: Rocks or rocky places.
סְלָעִים
Psalm 104:18 uses this plural form for the conies’ refuge, echoing the same shelter.
THE PATTERN
The vulnerable find durable shelter by dwelling where the ground beneath them is stronger than they are.
The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a shelter for the hyraxes.The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I shelter; my shield, and the horn of my deliverance, and my high place.Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock.THE THREAD
The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a shelter for the hyraxes.Both verses repeat שְׁפַנִּים (shaphanim, conies) and the root סלע (sela, rock): Proverbs says they place their home in rock, while the psalm names the rocks as their refuge. The echo makes the shelter itself the point: rock holds a people described as lacking might.
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