Proverbs 25:2

Bible in Basic English (1941)

It is the glory of God to keep a thing secret: but the glory of kings is to have it searched out.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

כְּבֹ֣ד אֱ֭לֹהִים הַסְתֵּ֣ר דָּבָ֑ר וּכְבֹ֥ד מְ֝לָכִ֗ים חֲקֹ֣ר דָּבָֽר׃

Transliteration

kĕbōd ʾĕlōhîm hastēr dābār and-kĕbōd mĕlākîm ḥăqōr dābār

Grammar Details

• *kĕbōd*: noun, construct state - glory of/honor of
• *ʾĕlōhîm*: noun, masculine plural (divine singular) - God
• *hastēr*: hiphil infinitive construct - to hide/conceal
• *dābār*: noun, masculine singular - word/thing/matter
• *û*: conjunction - and
• *mĕlākîm*: noun, masculine plural - kings
• *ḥăqōr*: qal infinitive construct - to search out/investigate

Word Meanings

• *kĕbōd*: glory/honor/splendor
• *hastēr*: to hide/conceal/cover
• *dābār*: word/thing/matter/affair
• *ḥăqōr*: to search out/investigate/examine thoroughly

Referenced Verses

• Deut 29:29 : 29 The secret things are the Lord our God's: but the things which have been made clear are ours and our children's for ever, so that we may do all the words of this law.
• 1 Kgs 3:9-9 : 9 Give your servant, then, a wise heart for judging your people, able to see what is good and what evil; for who is able to be the judge of this great people? 10 Now these words and Solomon's request were pleasing to the Lord. 11 And God said to him, Because your request is for this thing, and not for long life for yourself or for wealth or for the destruction of your haters, but for wisdom to be a judge of causes; 12 I have done as you said: I have given you a wise and far-seeing heart, so that there has never been your equal in the past, and never will there be any like you in the future. 13 And with this I have given you what you made no request for: wealth and honour, so that no king was ever your equal. 14 And if you go on in my ways, keeping my laws and my orders as your father David did, I will give you a long life. 15 And Solomon, awakening, saw that it was a dream; then he came to Jerusalem, where he went before the ark of the agreement of the Lord, offering burned offerings and peace-offerings; and he made a feast for all his servants. 16 Then two loose women of the town came and took their places before the king; 17 And one of them said, O my lord, I and this woman are living in the same house; and I gave birth to a child by her side in the house. 18 And three days after the birth of my child, this woman had a child: we were together, no other-person was with us in the house but we two only. 19 In the night, this woman, sleeping on her child, was the cause of its death. 20 And she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while your servant was sleeping; and she took it in her arms and put her dead child in my arms. 21 And when I got up to give my child the breast, I saw that it was dead; but in the morning, looking at it with care, I saw that it was not my son. 22 And the other woman said, No; but the living child is my son and the dead one yours. But the first said, No; the dead child is your son and the living one mine. So they kept on talking before the king. 23 Then the king said, One says, The living child is my son, and yours is the dead: and the other says, Not so; but your son is the dead one and mine is the living. 24 Then he said, Get me a sword. So they went and put a sword before the king. 25 And the king said, Let the living child be cut in two and one half given to one woman and one to the other. 26 Then the mother of the living child came forward, for her heart went out to her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the child; do not on any account put it to death. But the other woman said, It will not be mine or yours; let it be cut in two. 27 Then the king made answer and said, Give her the child, and do not put it to death; she is the mother of it. 28 And news of this decision which the king had made went through all Israel; and they had fear of the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to give decisions.
• Job 29:16 : 16 I was a father to the poor, searching out the cause of him who was strange to me.
• Rom 11:33-34 : 33 O how deep is the wealth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! no one is able to make discovery of his decisions, and his ways may not be searched out. 34 Who has knowledge of the mind of the Lord? or who has taken part in his purposes?
• Job 38:4-39:30 : 4 Where were you when I put the earth on its base? Say, if you have knowledge. 5 By whom were its measures fixed? Say, if you have wisdom; or by whom was the line stretched out over it? 6 On what were its pillars based, or who put down its angle-stone, 7 When the morning stars made songs together, and all the sons of the gods gave cries of joy? 8 Or where were you when the sea came to birth, pushing out from its secret place; 9 When I made the cloud its robe, and put thick clouds as bands round it, 10 Ordering a fixed limit for it, with locks and doors; 11 And said, So far you may come, and no farther; and here the pride of your waves will be stopped? 12 Have you, from your earliest days, given orders to the morning, or made the dawn conscious of its place; 13 So that it might take a grip of the skirts of the earth, shaking all the evil-doers out of it? 14 It is changed like wet earth under a stamp, and is coloured like a robe; 15 And from the evil-doers their light is kept back, and the arm of pride is broken. 16 Have you come into the springs of the sea, walking in the secret places of the deep? 17 Have the doors of death been open to you, or have the door-keepers of the dark ever seen you? 18 Have you taken note of the wide limits of the earth? Say, if you have knowledge of it all. 19 Which is the way to the resting-place of the light, and where is the store-house of the dark; 20 So that you might take it to its limit, guiding it to its house? 21 No doubt you have knowledge of it, for then you had come to birth, and the number of your days is great. 22 Have you come into the secret place of snow, or have you seen the store-houses of the ice-drops, 23 Which I have kept for the time of trouble, for the day of war and fighting? 24 Which is the way to the place where the wind is measured out, and the east wind sent out over the earth? 25 By whom has the way been cut for the flowing of the rain, and the flaming of the thunder; 26 Causing rain to come on a land where no man is living, on the waste land which has no people; 27 To give water to the land where there is waste and destruction, and to make the dry land green with young grass? 28 Has the rain a father? or who gave birth to the drops of night mist? 29 Out of whose body came the ice? and who gave birth to the cold mist of heaven? 30 The waters are joined together, hard as a stone, and the face of the deep is covered. 31 Are the bands of the Pleiades fixed by you, or are the cords of Orion made loose? 32 Do you make Mazzaroth come out in its right time, or are the Bear and its children guided by you? 33 Have you knowledge of the laws of the heavens? did you give them rule over the earth? 34 Is your voice sent up to the cloud, so that you may be covered by the weight of waters? 35 Do you send out the thunder-flames, so that they may go, and say to you, Here we are? 36 Who has put wisdom in the high clouds, or given knowledge to the lights of the north? 37 By whose wisdom are the clouds numbered, or the water-skins of the heavens turned to the earth, 38 When the earth becomes hard as metal, and is joined together in masses? 1 Do you go after food for the she-lion, or get meat so that the young lions may have enough, 2 When they are stretched out in their holes, and are waiting in the brushwood? 3 Who gives in the evening the meat he is searching for, when his young ones are crying to God; when the young lions with loud noise go wandering after their food? 4 Have you knowledge of the rock-goats? or do you see the roes giving birth to their young? 5 Is the number of their months fixed by you? or is the time when they give birth ordered by you? 6 They are bent down, they give birth to their young, they let loose the fruit of their body. 7 Their young ones are strong, living in the open country; they go out and do not come back again. 8 Who has let the ass of the fields go free? or made loose the bands of the loud-voiced beast? 9 To whom I have given the waste land for a heritage, and the salt land as a living-place. 10 He makes sport of the noise of the town; the voice of the driver does not come to his ears; 11 He goes looking for his grass-lands in the mountains, searching out every green thing. 12 Will the ox of the mountains be your servant? or is his night's resting-place by your food-store? 13 Will he be pulling your plough with cords, turning up the valleys after you? 14 Will you put your faith in him, because his strength is great? will you give the fruit of your work into his care? 15 Will you be looking for him to come back, and get in your seed to the crushing-floor? 16 Is the wing of the ostrich feeble, or is it because she has no feathers, 17 That she puts her eggs on the earth, warming them in the dust, 18 Without a thought that they may be crushed by the foot, and broken by the beasts of the field? 19 She is cruel to her young ones, as if they were not hers; her work is to no purpose; she has no fear. 20 For God has taken wisdom from her mind, and given her no measure of knowledge. 21 When she is shaking her wings on high, she makes sport of the horse and of him who is seated on him. 22 Do you give strength to the horse? is it by your hand that his neck is clothed with power? 23 Is it through you that he is shaking like a locust, in the pride of his loud-sounding breath? 24 He is stamping with joy in the valley; he makes sport of fear. 25 In his strength he goes out against the arms of war, turning not away from the sword. 26 The bow is sounding against him; he sees the shining point of spear and arrow. 27 Shaking with passion, he is biting the earth; he is not able to keep quiet at the sound of the horn; 28 When it comes to his ears he says, Aha! He is smelling the fight from far off, and hearing the thunder of the captains, and the war-cries. 29 Is it through your knowledge that the hawk takes his flight, stretching out his wings to the south? 30 Or is it by your orders that the eagle goes up, and makes his resting-place on high?
• Job 42:3 : 3 Who is this who makes dark the purpose of God by words without knowledge? For I have been talking without knowledge about wonders not to be searched out.
• 1 Kgs 4:29-34 : 29 And God gave Solomon a great store of wisdom and good sense, and a mind of wide range, as wide as the sand by the seaside. 30 And Solomon's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East and all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 For he was wiser than all men, even than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Calcol and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and he had a great name among all the nations round about. 32 He was the maker of three thousand wise sayings, and of songs to the number of a thousand and five. 33 He made sayings about all plants, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop hanging on the wall; and about all beasts and birds and fishes and the small things of the earth. 34 People came from every nation to give ear to the wisdom of Solomon, from all the kings of the earth who had word of his wisdom.
• Ezra 4:15 : 15 So that search may be made in the book of the records of your fathers: and you will see in the book of the records that this town has been uncontrolled, and a cause of trouble to kings and countries, and that there were outbursts against authority there in the past: for which reason the town was made waste.
• Ezra 4:19 : 19 And I gave orders for a search to be made, and it is certain that in the past this town has made trouble for kings, and that outbursts against authority have taken place there.
• Job 11:7-8 : 7 Are you able to take God's measure, to make discovery of the limits of the Ruler of all? 8 They are higher than heaven; what is there for you to do? deeper than the underworld, and outside your knowledge;