Verse Lens · Concise explanation

Proverbs 16:19 Explained in Context

Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.

Selected verse

Verse 19. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.

King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions

Quick Meaning

This verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud”.

Pride walks in front of collapse; a lowly spirit with the poor beats spoil with the proud

This verse is one part of that explanation in Proverbs 16:18–22. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.

Read It With

  • Proverbs 16:18–22

Read Proverbs 16:19 with 16:18–22. Read alone, “Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall”; by 16:22, it uses contrastive parallelism to place “Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath…” against “the instruction of fools is folly”. Together the unit concentrates on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, reverent accountability before the LORD within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”

Why This Verse Appears Here

Proverbs 16:18–22 forms a reviewed local cluster inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” Its lines concentrate on humility, teachability, pride, and reputation, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, reverent accountability before the LORD, while each sentence proverb retains its own force and the neighboring database unit does not supply its meaning. Within that relationship, this verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud”.

What Remains True

Teachability and truthful self-knowledge are safer than status-protection, self-exaltation, or contempt for correction. In Proverbs 16:19, that bounded truth is expressed through “Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to…,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.

How It Can Shape Life

  • Invite specific feedback, test your assumptions, share credit, and repair the effects of pride rather than performing modesty. Proverbs 16:19 names that responsibility through “Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to…,” so the response must remain accountable to the person, action, comparison, or consequence in this line.

Continue in Context

Read the complete section for the connected explanation and how it should shape life. This verse is a doorway into that passage, not a saying that stands alone.

Read Proverbs 16:18–22 — Humility, teachability, pride, and reputation — Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit…
Sources used for this Verse Lens

How certain is this explanation? strong

These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.

Biblical text

King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006

eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society

USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.

Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.

Exact location: Proverbs 16:18–22, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus

Open source ↗

hebrew text and morphology

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Proverbs

Open Scriptures

Open Scriptures, release 2.2

Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.

Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 16:18-16:22

Open source ↗

translation and translator notes

NET Bible: Proverbs with translators' notes

Biblical Studies Press

Biblical Studies Press, 2006

Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.

Exact location: NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1125-1128, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 16:18–22

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