Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Proverbs 17:1 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 1. 1Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse contributes the claim, image, or instruction “Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife”.
A dry morsel with quiet beats a feast-house full of strife
This verse is one part of that explanation in Proverbs 17:1–4. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.
Read It With
- Proverbs 17:1–4
Read Proverbs 17:1 with 17:1–4. Read alone, “Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house…” 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 “Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife”; by 17:4, it uses two-part parallelism to place “A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips” beside “and a liar giveth ear to a naughty tongue”. Together the unit concentrates on family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, violence, predation, conflict, and protection, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
Why This Verse Appears Here
Proverbs 17:1–4 forms a reviewed local cluster inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” Its lines concentrate on family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care, violence, predation, conflict, and protection, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, 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 is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife”.
What Remains True
Family relationships can transmit wisdom and responsibility, but their authority remains accountable to truth, safety, and justice. In Proverbs 17:1, that bounded truth is expressed through “Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house…,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
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 17:1–4 — Family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care — Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an…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 17:1–4, 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 17:1-17:4
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. 1129-1132, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 17:1–4
Open source ↗