Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Proverbs 21:28 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 28. 28A false witness shall perish: but the man that heareth speaketh constantly.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “A false witness shall perish” against “the man that heareth speaketh constantly”.
Greedy wanting all day; the righteous give and do not hold back
This verse is one part of that explanation in Proverbs 21:26–29. The complete section carries the connected meaning and how it should shape life.
Read It With
- Proverbs 21:26–29
Read Proverbs 21:28 with 21:26–29. Read alone, “A false witness shall perish: but the man that heareth speaketh…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: uses contrastive parallelism to place “He coveteth greedily all the day long” against “the righteous giveth and spareth not”; by 21:29, it uses contrastive parallelism to place “A wicked man hardeneth his face” against “as for the upright, he directeth his way”. Together the unit concentrates on truthful testimony, honest measures, and integrity, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, generosity, neighbor-care, and material responsibility within “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.”
Why This Verse Appears Here
Proverbs 21:26–29 forms a reviewed local cluster inside “First Solomonic sentence-saying collection.” Its lines concentrate on truthful testimony, honest measures, and integrity, justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, generosity, neighbor-care, and material responsibility, while each sentence proverb retains its own force and the neighboring database unit does not supply its meaning. Within that relationship, this verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “A false witness shall perish” against “the man that heareth speaketh constantly”.
What Remains True
Words can reveal character, transmit truth, inflame conflict, protect others, or cause durable harm. In Proverbs 21:28, that bounded truth is expressed through “A false witness shall perish: but the man that heareth speaketh…,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Pause, verify, listen, and choose truthful speech fitted to the hearer, timing, risk, and public consequences. Proverbs 21:28 names that responsibility through “A false witness shall perish: but the man that heareth speaketh…,” 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 21:26–29 — Truthful testimony, honest measures, and integrity — He coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous…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 21:26–29, 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 21:26-21:29
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. 1144-1148, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 21:26–29
Open source ↗