Proverbs 6:28

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Or can one walk on hot coals, And his feet not be scorched?

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

תִכָּוֶֽינָה

kâvâh

H3554

“to burn”

Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Feminine, Plural

Appears 2× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 961

to burn, scorch, brand - (Niphal) to be burned, be scorched

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

8: words
8: distinct lemmas
Wisdom: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is תִכָּוֶֽינָה to burn H3554 — appearing just 2 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

תִכָּוֶֽינָה to burn H3554

Shared distinctive vocabulary

תִכָּוֶֽינָה to burn H3554 occurs in 2 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Isaiah 43:2

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 preposition
1 conjunction
1 particle

Verb forms

יְהַלֵּ֣ךְ Piel · Imperfect
תִכָּוֶֽינָה Niphal · Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 13 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 8 Hebrew tokens and 11 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Proverbs 6:28 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

אִם יְהַלֵּ֣ךְ אִ֭ישׁ עַל הַגֶּחָלִ֑ים וְ֝רַגְלָ֗יו לֹ֣א תִכָּוֶֽינָה

Or can one walk on hot coals, And his feet not be scorched?

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Proverbs 6:28 Septuagint · lemma form

ἤ περιπατέω τις ἐπί ἄνθραξ πῦρ ὁ δέ πούς οὐ κατακαύω

or will any one walk on coals of fire, and not burn his feet?

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Commentary

Notes on Proverbs 6:28 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Pro 6:28 Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?

Ver. 28. Can one go upon hot coals?] Similitudes are never set out to confirm or confute, but to adorn and illustrate, giving unto their matter a certain kind of lively gesture, and stirring up thereby men’s drowsy minds to the consideration and acknowledgment of the truth, and to the pursuit and practice of virtue and godliness. Of the great use of similes, we may read in Chrysost., Hom. in Gen.; Origen in Levit.; August. de Doctrina Christ., lib. ii.; Greg. Moral., lib. iii. cap. 36, &c.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

So he that goeth into his neighbour's wife,.... To converse with her, or lie with her, as the Targum; for it means not barely going into her house or chamber, or into her company, though without any ill design at first, which yet may be dangerous; but committing adultery with her, as this phrase is often used, Gen 19:31;

whosoever toucheth her; by impure dalliances, and especially by carnal copulation with her, in which sense it is used; see Gill on Co1 7:1;

shall not be innocent; or free (r) from disgrace and infamy, from loss of substance or health; from punishment in this life, either by the jealous husband or civil magistrate; and in the world to come by the Lord himself; for "whoremongers and adulterers God will judge", Heb 13:4.

(r) "non insons, vel immunis", Schultens; so Gejerus.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Pulpit Commentary

Can one go upon hot coals, etc.? The repeated question is introduced by gin, "if," here equivalent to the Latin an, used in double questions, as in Gen_24:21 Exo_17:7 Jud_1:9:2, etc. Go; i.e. walk upon hot coals (Hebrew, al-haggekalim); literally, upon the hot coals. The Hebrew gakheleth is coals thoroughly ignited, as in Lev_16:12 and Pro_25:22; different from pekham of Pro_26:21, which is "a black coal," or, as Gesenius explains, charcoal unkindled. Be burned; Hebrew, tikkaveynah; i.e. be burned or scorched so as to leave a mark by burning, as in Isa_43:2; this being the force of the verb kavah. The flames of lust will certainly be visited with punishment, and with the stings of conscience. Job, speaking on this very subject, says a deviation from the paths of virtue "is a fire that consumeth to destruction." And to him who gives way to adultery it may be said, in the words of Horace, though with a different application from that in which they were used by that poet, "incedis per ignes suppositos cineri doloso." "You are walking over fire that lies hidden under deceitful ashes" (Gejerus).

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

Can a man walk on hot coals without scorching his feet?

Walking on hot coals will scorch a person's feet, so the implied answer is "no." AT: "Every man who walks on hot coals will have scorched feet." (See: Rhetorical Question)

walk on hot coals

This stands for committing adultery. (See: Metaphor)

walk

That is to slowly walk a long distance, without using tricks or magic.

scorching

"burning"

translationWords

neighbor

punish

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Proverbs, in the Wisdom, opens this verse with 8 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is kâvâh (“to burn”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word kâvâh carries the sense “to burn.” How does it shape the verse?
This is the first place “to burn” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Isaiah 43:2, which shares the word «to burn», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«יְהַלֵּ֣ךְ» is a Piel Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 11 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 11 words in this verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.