Proverbs 7:25

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Don't let your heart turn to her ways. Don't go astray in her paths,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs shorter here — compare

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יֵ֣שְׂטְ

sâṭâh

H7847

“to turn aside”

Verb, Qal, Jussive, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 6× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Numbers 5:12

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2250

to turn aside, go aside, turn, decline - (Qal) to turn aside

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
7: distinct lemmas
Wisdom: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is יֵ֣שְׂטְ to turn aside H7847 — appearing just 6 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

יֵ֣שְׂטְ to turn aside H7847 occurs in 6 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 preposition
2 particles

Verb forms

יֵ֣שְׂטְ Qal · Jussive
תֵּ֝תַע Qal · Jussive

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

אַל not H408 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 9 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter here. See the side-by-side →

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 9 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Proverbs 7:25 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Proverbs 5:8 Remove your way far from her. Don't come near the door of her house,
Proverbs 6:25 Don't lust after her beauty in your heart, Neither let her captivate you with her eyelids.
Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Matthew 5:28 but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
Psalms 119:176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I don't forget your commandments.
Proverbs 4:14–15 Don't enter into the path of the wicked. Don't walk in the way of evil men.
Proverbs 5:23 He will die for lack of instruction. In the greatness of his folly, he will go astray.
Proverbs 23:31–33 Don't look at the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly:

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

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

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 9 words vs World English Bible 14. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

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

Hebrew Proverbs 7:25 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

אַל יֵ֣שְׂטְ אֶל דְּרָכֶ֣יהָ לִבֶּ֑ךָ אַל תֵּ֝תַע בִּנְתִיבוֹתֶֽיהָ

Don't let your heart turn to her ways. Don't go astray in her paths,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Proverbs 7:25 Septuagint · lemma form

μή ἐκκλίνω εἰς ὁ ὁδός αὐτός ὁ καρδία σύ

Let not your heart turn aside to her ways:

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, John Gill's Exposition discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

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 7:25 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 7:25 Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.

Ver. 25. Let not thine heart.] Think not of her, lust not after her. Thoughts and affections are sibi mutuo causae. "While I mused the fire burned," {Psa 39:3} so that thoughts kindle affections, and these cause thoughts to boil. See Job 31:1. See therefore that evil thoughts, though they rush into the heart, yet they rest not in it.

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

For she hath cast down many wounded,.... Wounded in their name, character, and reputation; in their bodies by diseases; and in their souls by guilt, shame, and horror, through a compliance with her sinful lusts: these she "cast down" from the honours they were possessed of, from the health they enjoyed, and from the peace and tranquillity of mind they formerly felt within them. And not a single person, as the young man instanced in, or a few only, but "many"; great multitudes, hundreds and thousands, and those not weak, and foolish, and inconstant, as he might be thought to be; but such as were "great" (m) and mighty, as the word also signifies; men of great riches, and wisdom, and courage; as soldiers (n), mighty men of war, such as wound and kill others; which seems the true sense of the word here used: and therefore none ought to trust in themselves, nor trust themselves in her company, nor in the least decline to her ways; and especially such as are weak and unskilful, and ignorant of her devices, as the "children" here addressed;

yea, many strong men have been slain by her; men famous for martial exploits, as Samson and others, have been overcome by her: some of great fortitude of mind have not been able to withstand her, she has prevailed over them; and others of robust constitutions have been weakened by diseases, contracted through incontinency with her; and some have suffered death by her means, either from her husband, or her gallants, or the civil magistrate: and of these there have been "innumerable" instances; so the word (o) for "strong men" sometimes signifies; and so it is here rendered in the Septuagint and Arabic versions, "and innumerable are they whom she has slain". All the world have wondered after the whore of Rome; kings of the earth and mighty men have committed fornication with her; high and low, rich and poor, have been ruined by her; thousands have gone to hell by her means; and some of the sycophants of Rome have even said, that if the pope of Rome should send thousands to hell, of which they seem themselves to be conscious, no one should say to him, What dost thou?

(m) "multos magnosque", Gejerus. (n) See Dr. Kennicott's Dissert. 1. p. 110. (o) Sept. so Arab. "numerosi", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Amama, Cocceius, Michaelis, Schultens; so Bootius, Animadv. l. 4. c. 11. s. 2.

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

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Decline to her ways; either to the paths which lead to her house, or to her manner of living.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Let not thine heart decline to her ways. The verb satah is used in Pro_4:15 (where see note) of turning aside from evil; but here, as Delitzsch notes, it is especially appropriate to the case of a faithless wife whose transgression, or declension from virtue, is described by this term. (Num_5:12) Go not astray in her paths. The LXX (in most manuscripts) has only one rendering for the two clauses: "Let not thine heart incline unto her ways."

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

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 (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is sâṭâh (“to turn aside”). The Greek Septuagint runs shorter here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to turn aside” (sâṭâh) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Numbers 5:12, which shares the word «to turn aside», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “not” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The Septuagint runs shorter here than the Hebrew. What might account for the difference?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«יֵ֣שְׂטְ» is a Qal Jussive 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

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 9 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 11 words in this verse.
“not” occurs 2× in this single verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.