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Proverbs 25:2–3, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Proverbs 25:2–3
Humility, teachability, pride, and reputation — It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour…
God's glory includes concealing; a king's honor includes searching out
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honor of kings is to search out a matter. The heaven for height, and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is unsearchable.
Concealment is not a taunt. Some of God's ways are not ours to pry into as if we sat on the throne of the world. A human king, by contrast, is charged to investigate: cases, causes, facts. Searching is judicial and administrative work, not omniscience.
A king's heart is deep, which is a warning as much as a compliment
Unsearchable like heaven and earth means you do not fully map a ruler's inner weather. That is not a mystical halo. It is a reason for humility around power: do not pretend you have read the whole of a throne, and do not treat a ruler's secrecy as if it were God's.
The pairing keeps God and king distinct. Royal investigation is honor when it serves justice. It is not a license for surveillance of the weak, and God's concealment is not a cover for a leader's lies.
How this should shape us
Let God be God, including the things you are not owed. If you hold authority, do the slow work of finding out what is true. Do not confuse a ruler's hiddenness with holiness, and do not use searching as a tool against people who cannot refuse you.
Teach it back
Explain Proverbs 25:2–3 in your own words. Identify its form and collection, trace one line from role through contextual meaning and enduring truth to application, name one uncertainty, and reject one misuse explicitly.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, canonical order, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Proverbs 25:2–3, repository-pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology used only for the exact unit's lexical, grammatical, parallel, superscription, number-saying, and acrostic questions.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Prov.xml, OSIS 25:2-25:3
Supports: Verse-attached textual, lexical, grammatical, syntactic, parallelism, and older-English controls for the exact range.
NET Bible Proverbs PDF, printed pp. 1161-1164, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 25:2–3
Supports: Whole-book and collection orientation, local commentary, social-setting proposals, and named interpretation limits.
Aitken, ‘Proverbs,’ Oxford Bible Commentary, printed pp. 405-422, subsection covering 25:2–3 and the Solomonic sayings copied by Hezekiah's men outline
Supports: Abstract-level control for the dispute over individual-saying, small-cluster, and collection context; no uninspected detailed claim.
Weeks, ‘Context in the Sayings Collections,’ Early Israelite Wisdom (2000), official abstract and chapter pp. 20-40; methodological question applied to Proverbs 25:2–3
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
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 25:2–3, 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 25:2-25:3
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. 1161-1164, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 25:2–3
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 25:2–3 and the Solomonic sayings copied by Hezekiah's men 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 25:2–3
Open source ↗