Verse Lens · Expanded explanation
Proverbs 24:21 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 21. 21My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change:
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse opens with “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king” and develops the line through “and meddle not with them that are given to change”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 24:21–22
Within Sayings of the wise, Proverbs 24:21 opens with “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king” and develops the line through “and meddle not with them that are given to change”. The immediate unit supplies proportion, affected people, and the transition from meaning to application.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Here the saying opens with “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king” and develops the line through “and meddle not with them that are given to change”, moving Proverbs 24:21–22 from its opening observation toward its reviewed close.
Follow the Context
- Opening (24:21): the unit opens with “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king” and develops the line through “and meddle not with them that are given to change”.
- Development (24:21–22): adjacent lines test kingship, public authority, and accountable rule, reverent accountability before the LORD, family teaching, responsibility, and mutual care through parallelism, contrast, motive, image, or consequence.
- Close (24:22): the unit uses two-part parallelism to place “For their calamity shall rise suddenly” beside “and who knoweth the ruin of them both?”, creating the next supported pause.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with...”
In plain language: reverent accountability before the LORD
This verse opens with “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king” and develops the line through “and meddle not with them that are given to change”.
Why it matters: This wording carries interpretive, pastoral, or misuse risk requiring the full unit and explicit limits.
How certain? probableWhat This Verse Is Not Saying
The verse does not demand blind obedience, condemn every reform, sacralize a ruler, or suppress resistance to abuse and injustice.
What Remains True
Wisdom begins with reverent accountability to the LORD and refuses to make human insight self-sufficient. In Proverbs 24:21, that bounded truth is expressed through “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with...,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Bring the decision under truthful worship, moral accountability, and correction rather than using religious language to shield preference or power. For Proverbs 24:21, preserve the sequence: verse role (opens with “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king” and develops the line through “and meddle not with them that are given to change”) -> contextual meaning in Proverbs 24:21–22 -> proportionate truth -> this accountable response.
Teach It Back
Explain Proverbs 24:21's exact role in Proverbs 24:21–22. Distinguish pattern from guarantee, include “My son, fear thou the LORD and the king:...,” name one uncertainty, and explicitly reject one harmful use.
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Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Proverbs 24:21–22 — Kingship, public authority, and accountable rule — My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not...Sources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? probable
Where care is needed
Ancient counsel about the LORD and king belongs within royal society and is immediately bounded by warning about destructive upheaval; it is not a comprehensive politics.
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 24:21–22, 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 24:21-24:22
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. 1156-1161, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 24:21–22
Open source ↗modern critical commentary
Proverbs
K. T. Aitken
Oxford University Press, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, 2001
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Exact location: Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 24:21–22 and the Sayings of the wise outline
Open source ↗scholarly monograph chapter abstract and metadata
Context in the Sayings Collections
Stuart Weeks
Oxford University Press, in Early Israelite Wisdom, 2000
Supports: Abstract-level control for the dispute over individual-saying, small-cluster, and collection context; no uninspected detailed claim.
Exact location: Weeks, ‘Context in the Sayings Collections,’ Early Israelite Wisdom (2000), official abstract and chapter pp. 20-40; methodological question applied to Proverbs 24:21–22
Open source ↗