What Does Proverbs 31:12 Mean?
She repays him good and not harm all the days of her life.
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
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb behind “do him good” can mean to deal with or repay: goodness is what she gives him through the way she treats him, day after day.
THE MEANING
This verse names a relationship by its ongoing effect: one person receives good rather than harm through the other’s way of dealing. Goodness here holds across the ordinary days, not only the brightest moment.
THE ROOT
גְּמָלַתְהוּ
gemalathu
GROWS FROM
גמל
g-m-l
To deal with, repay, or recompense.
“do him good” in this verse is gemalathu. The Hebrew verb is from gamal, a root that can describe dealing with someone or repaying them. The line presents goodness as what she deals to him through her actions, sustained across her days.
ALSO GROWS
gamal: To deal with, repay, or recompense.
גָּמַל
This is the verb’s root form; it gives “do him good” the texture of concrete treatment rather than an abstract quality.
gemul: A deed, dealing, or recompense.
גְּמוּל
This related noun can name what a person’s actions return, making the good in the verse something the other person experiences.
טוֹב
tov
GROWS FROM
טוב
ṭ-w-b
To be good, pleasant, or beneficial.
Tov carries the sense of what is beneficial as well as good. Paired with gamal, it shows goodness as a benefit that reaches another through a steady way of dealing.
ALSO GROWS
tov: Good, pleasant, or beneficial.
טוֹב
This is the word used for what she deals him: good is the quality of what reaches him.
heitiv: To do good or benefit.
הֵיטִיב
This related verb makes the active sense of tov visible: goodness can be something done for another.
THE PATTERN
Faithful goodness becomes visible in what a person steadily deals to others over time.
And he said to David, You are more aligned than I, for you have repaid me good, and I have repaid you evil.Turn aside from evil and do good; seek wholeness and pursue it.So then, while we hold the season, let us work the good toward all, and most of all toward the household of trust.THE THREAD
And he said to David, You are more aligned than I, for you have repaid me good, and I have repaid you evil.The verb translated “rewarded” comes from the same root, גמל (g-m-l), gamal, as “do him good” here. In both verses, good is what one person deals to another, giving the word the texture of lived treatment.
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