What Does Proverbs 5:5 Mean?
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold of Sheol.
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
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root describes steps holding fast to Sheol here and people holding fast to Wisdom, the tree of life, in Proverbs 3:18.
THE MEANING
The verse makes danger visible as movement: her feet descend toward death, and her steps fasten onto Sheol, the realm of the dead. The path does not merely pass near ruin; its own footing holds to where it leads.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that ruin begins only at the destination: here the steps themselves already take hold of Sheol.
THE ROOT
יִתְמְכוּ
yitmekhu
GROWS FROM
תמך
t-m-kh
to support, uphold, or hold fast
“take hold of” in this verse is yitmekhu. The verb pictures the steps as holding fast to Sheol, not simply approaching it. The same root describes those who support or retain Wisdom, called a tree of life in Proverbs 3:18; what is held fast shapes the path’s direction.
ALSO GROWS
tomekh: one who supports or holds
תֹּמֵךְ
The supporting sense makes the steps’ grip on Sheol more vivid.
tomkheha: those who support her; rendered “retaineth her” in Proverbs 3:18
תֹּמְכֶיהָ
This form uses the same root for holding to Wisdom, the tree of life, revealing the striking contrast with the steps here.
יֹרְדוֹת
yordot
GROWS FROM
ירד
y-r-d
to descend or go down
“go down” in this verse is yordot. The Hebrew describes the feet as going down, keeping the image in motion rather than presenting death only as a distant endpoint. The descent and the grip work together: the feet move downward while the steps hold fast to Sheol.
ALSO GROWS
yarad: to descend or go down
יָרַד
This is the root verb behind the feet’s downward movement.
horid: to bring down or cause to descend
הוֹרִיד
This causative form shows the root can describe descent as an ongoing force, deepening the verse’s image of a deathward path.
THE PATTERN
A path’s end is already implicit in the direction its steps take.
For the LORD perceives the way of the aligned, but the way of the wicked loses its way.There is a way straight before a man, but its latter end is the ways of death.Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and roomy is the way that leads to perishing, and many are those who go in through it.THE THREAD
She is a tree of life to those who grip her, and those who hold her fast are flourishing.“Retaineth” translates the same Hebrew root תמך (t-m-kh), meaning to support or hold fast, as “take hold” in Proverbs 5:5. One passage pictures steps holding fast to Sheol; the other describes people holding fast to Wisdom, the tree of life.
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