What Does Proverbs 31:4 Mean?
It is not for kings, Lemuel; it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink.
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
It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink:THE KEY
For a ruler, intoxication is not merely private indulgence; it reaches the judgment entrusted to them.
THE MEANING
When you carry authority, your clarity is part of the work itself. The verse places wine and intoxicating drink beside kingship because impaired perception travels outward through decisions that affect others. What you take in is not sealed off from the lives shaped by your choices.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that private excess stays private when your choices govern others.
THE ROOT
שֵׁכָר
shekhar
GROWS FROM
שכר
sh-k-r
to become intoxicated or drunk
The Hebrew word for strong drink shares its root with words for being drunk and drunkenness. The verse names the drink through the state it can produce, bringing the ruler’s altered judgment into view.
ALSO GROWS
shikkor: a drunk or intoxicated person
שִׁכּוֹר
This branch names the condition associated with the drink in the verse.
shikkaron: drunkenness
שִׁכָּרוֹן
The same root names the state that can cloud a ruler’s discernment.
מְלָכִים
melakhim
GROWS FROM
מלך
m-l-k
to reign or exercise rule
“kings” in this verse is melakhim. The root names both the king and the act of ruling, keeping the verse focused on the condition of leadership. What affects the ruler’s judgment reaches the work of ruling itself.
ALSO GROWS
melekh: king
מֶלֶךְ
This is the singular form of the title named in the verse.
malakh: to reign or rule
מָלַךְ
This branch makes the ruler’s function explicit.
malkhut: kingdom or reign
מַלְכוּת
The same root extends from the ruler to the realm shaped by that rule.
THE PATTERN
When a person carries authority, intoxication threatens the clarity on which sound judgment depends.
And these also stagger in wine, and reel in strong drink. The priest and the prophet reel in strong drink; they are swallowed by wine; they reel from the drink; they stagger in seeing; they stumble in judgment.Flourishing are you, O land, when your king is the son of the free-born, and your princes eat in season, for strength and not for drinking.Then the overseer must be one no hand can seize, a man of one wife, clear-headed, whole-minded, well-ordered, a lover of strangers, able to make others learn.THE THREAD
Lest they drink and forget the statute, and twist the judgment of all who are bowed.The verb for “drink” in both verses comes from שָׁתָה (shatah, to drink): verse 4 names the ruler’s drinking, and verse 5 reveals its consequence, forgetting instruction and distorting justice for the afflicted. The next verse exposes the public cost beneath the warning.
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