What Does Proverbs 9:15 Mean?
To call out to the passersby who go straight on their paths.
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
To call passengers who go right on their ways:THE KEY
Folly’s call reaches even those who are making their paths straight.
THE MEANING
The voice of Folly reaches you while you are moving along a path described as straight. The verse places the call beside the ordinary way, before saying whether you answer. Hearing a crooked invitation does not mean you have already left your way.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a foolish call reaches only someone who has already lost their way; here it calls to people whose paths are being made straight.
THE ROOT
הַמְיַשְּׁרִים
ham-yasherim
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ר
y-sh-r
To be straight, level, or upright; in this form, to make straight.
“go straight” in this verse is ham-yasherim. Inside “go right” is the active image of making a path straight: the people are in the act of laying their route level while a call reaches them. The same root appears when God “direct[s]” paths in Proverbs 3:6.
ALSO GROWS
yāšār: Straight, level, upright.
יָשָׁר
Names the quality of a path described as straight.
mîšôr: Level ground; levelness.
מִישׁוֹר
Carries straightness into the terrain a traveler crosses.
עֹבְרֵי
ʿovrei
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ר
ʿ-b-r
To cross over, pass through, or pass by.
“call out to the passersby” in this verse is ʿovrei. The people Folly addresses are defined by movement: they are passing along the way. Her voice intersects ordinary passage rather than waiting for someone to seek her out.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To pass over or cross.
עָבַר
Keeps the movement of the passersby visible in the verse.
maʿavār: A crossing or passage.
מַעֲבָר
Makes the route itself part of the scene where the call is heard.
לִקְרֹא
liqro
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־א
q-r-ʾ
To call out, summon, or name.
“call out to the passersby” in this verse is liqro. This is a summons directed toward someone, not merely a sound in the background. The verse records Folly’s call reaching people in motion; it has not yet told us how they respond.
ALSO GROWS
qārāʾ: To call, summon, or name.
קָרָא
Shows that the voice addresses someone and draws their attention.
miqrāʾ: A convocation or reading.
מִקְרָא
Carries the root’s sense of an utterance that calls people together or aloud.
THE PATTERN
Calls meet people along the way, and the caller’s character is revealed by where the invitation leads.
Wisdom rings out in the open; in the wide places she gives her voice.Come to me, all you who toil and have been loaded down, and I will give you rest.To him the gatekeeper opens, and the sheep hear and respond to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.THE THREAD
In all your ways, perceive him, and he straightens your paths.Both verses use יָשָׁר (yāšār), “to be or make straight”: here it describes the passersby making their paths straight, and in Proverbs 3:6 it describes the LORD directing them. A straightened path can still be a place where another voice calls.
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