What Does Proverbs 6:21 Mean?
Bind them upon your heart always, and gird them upon your throat.
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
Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck.THE KEY
“Bind” makes wisdom a bond with the inner self: these words are carried close continually, not stored for later.
THE MEANING
The instruction is fastened to your heart continually and kept close around your neck. It stays at the center of your inner life and near you as you move through the day.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that wisdom is useful only when recalled for a decision: here, the words remain bound close before any particular choice arises.
THE ROOT
קָשְׁרֵם
qāshĕrēm
GROWS FROM
קשר
To bind, tie, or fasten together.
“bind” in this verse is qāshĕrēm. The verb qāshar belongs to a word family that describes things bound or joined together. The image holds more than remembering: the instruction is attached to the inner person and kept close as an ongoing part of life.
ALSO GROWS
qesher: Conspiracy or a group bound together toward a shared purpose.
קֶשֶׁר
The same root can describe people joined by a bond; here, it pictures the words held fast to the person.
qeshurah: Bound or attached, as in Genesis 44:30, where one life is bound to another.
קְשׁוּרָה
This branch makes the image intimate: what is bound is held close, not kept at a distance.
THE PATTERN
What guides a person is pictured as words taken inward and kept continually close.
And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart.I store your word in my heart, so that I do not miss the mark against you.You are made visible as the letter of the Anointed One, served by us, written not with ink but with the breath of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh in the heart.THE THREAD
Do not let faithful love and truth let go of you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart.It uses the same verb, קָשַׁר (qāshar), “bind,” then adds writing on the heart. The repeated image shows the words both fastened close and inscribed within.
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