What Does Proverbs 5:8 Mean?
Put your way far from her, and do not draw near to the opening of her house.
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
Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:THE KEY
The verse makes distance a form of wisdom: the whole path is moved away before the feet reach the door.
THE MEANING
The warning reaches you at the level of your route: your way is to be far from her, and the entrance to her house is marked as a boundary. Here, getting near is already movement toward danger, so distance is part of clear seeing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you can hover at the threshold of danger without being drawn in: the verse moves the path itself away and refuses nearness to the door.
THE ROOT
הַרְחֵק
harḥēq
GROWS FROM
רחק
To be far off; in this verb form, to put at a distance.
“put your way far from her” in this verse is harḥēq. The command is to make the whole way distant, not merely to pause at the doorway. English can make “remove thy way far” sound like a general warning, but the Hebrew pictures distance deliberately created before arrival.
ALSO GROWS
rāḥôq: Far, distant
רָחוֹק
The same root describes distance itself, echoing the verse’s call to move the way out of reach.
merḥāq: A distance, a far place
מֶרְחָק
This branch makes distance a space one can occupy; the verse’s warning is about placing the path there.
תִּקְרַב
tiqrav
GROWS FROM
קרב
To approach, come near, or draw close.
“draw near to” in this verse is tiqrav. The verse pairs making distance with refusing approach: it names both sides of the boundary. The same root appears in qorbān, an offering brought near, so this root can carry the sense of drawing something into closeness.
ALSO GROWS
qārôḇ: Near, close
קָרוֹב
This branch names the closeness the verse explicitly bars at the house’s entrance.
qorbān: Offering, something brought near
קָרְבָּן
Its relation to drawing near sharpens the verse’s spatial language: approach is an active movement toward what lies within.
THE PATTERN
Danger is answered by changing the route before reaching its threshold.
Let go of it, and leave it; do not cross over it. Turn aside from it, and pass on.And she seized him by his garment, saying, Lie with me. And he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and went outside.Flee the selling of bodies. Every shortcoming that a person does is outside the body; but the one who sells bodies misses the mark against his own body.THE THREAD
They draw near, those who pursue their schemes; from your instruction they are far.This verse uses the same roots for “draw nigh” and “far” that Proverbs 5:8 sets against each other. Those who approach mischief are described as distant from instruction, revealing how nearness to one thing can mean distance from another.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us