What Does Proverbs 6:33 Mean?
A wound and a curse he finds, and his shame is not wiped clean.
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
A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away.THE KEY
The verse makes the aftermath part of the act: a wound can remain after the moment has passed.
THE MEANING
The betrayal named here leaves an injury and dishonor that continue beyond the act itself. Its reproach is described as a mark that does not simply disappear with time.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a deed is finished once it is hidden or over: its injury and reproach can remain after the act.
THE ROOT
תִּמָּחֶה
timmāḥeh
GROWS FROM
מחה
m-ḥ-h
to wipe, erase, or blot out
“wiped clean” in this verse is timmāḥeh. The Hebrew pictures reproach as something that could be wiped from a surface, yet the verse says it remains. Disgrace here is more than a passing feeling: it is a trace that endures.
ALSO GROWS
meḥēh: Blot out; wipe away.
מְחֵה
In Psalm 51:1, the same root appears as a plea to blot out transgressions, showing that this kind of erasure can also be asked for.
emḥeh: I will wipe out; I will blot out.
אֶמְחֶה
In Genesis 6:7, this form describes wiping humankind from the face of the ground, revealing the root’s force of complete removal.
נֶגַע
negaʿ
GROWS FROM
נגע
n-g-ʿ
to touch, reach, or strike
English “wound” can sound like a general injury, while נֶגַע (negaʿ, stroke or affliction) comes from a root of contact. The verse sets that impact beside reproach that remains, tracing how harm continues beyond the touch that caused it.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaʿ: To touch or reach.
נָגַע
The root begins with contact, so the wound is an impact that reaches into another life.
negaʿ: A stroke, affliction, or lesion.
נֶגַע
The same noun can name an affliction, carrying the idea of injury from a blow to an enduring mark.
THE PATTERN
Harm leaves a trace that continues speaking after the action is over.
And the LORD said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.The falling short of Judah is written with an iron pen, and carved with a point of hard stone; it is carved upon the tablet of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. Show me favor, O God, according to your faithful love; according to the abundance of your compassion, wipe away my rebellion.Proverbs says the reproach will not be wiped away; Psalm 51 uses the same root, מחה (m-ḥ-h, wipe or blot out), in a plea for transgressions to be blotted out. The shared verb holds the lasting consequence alongside a direct appeal for erasure.
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