Verse Lens · Context pointer
Proverbs 17:21 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 21. 21He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow: and the father of a fool hath no joy.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
This verse opens with “He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow” and develops the line through “and the father of a fool hath no joy”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 17:17–21
Read Proverbs 17:21 with 17:17–21. Read alone, “He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow: and the father…” 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 “A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity”; by 17:21, it opens with “He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow” and develops the line through “and the father of a fool hath no joy”. Together the unit concentrates on friendship, neighbor-love, loyalty, and boundaries, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception, violence, predation, conflict, and protection within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
Why It Needs Context
Read this role inside the complete unit: the verse opens with “He that begetteth a fool doeth it to his sorrow” and develops the line through “and the father of a fool hath no joy”. It does not carry a responsible standalone mandate apart from Proverbs 17:17–21.
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 17:17–21 — Friendship, neighbor-love, loyalty, and boundaries — A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for…Sources used for this context pointer
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 17:17–21, 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 17:17-17:21
Open source ↗