Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Proverbs 27:20 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 20. 20Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse uses two-part parallelism to place “Hell and destruction are never full” beside “so the eyes of man are never satisfied”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 27:20–22
Follow Proverbs 27:20–22, not verse 27:20 alone. This line uses two-part parallelism to place “Hell and destruction are never full” beside “so the eyes of man are never satisfied”, while the complete unit distinguishes a normal moral direction from a guaranteed outcome.
Why This Verse Appears Here
The unit needs this line's exact work: it uses two-part parallelism to place “Hell and destruction are never full” beside “so the eyes of man are never satisfied”. That placement develops life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power, wisdom, folly, teachability, and moral perception while leaving exceptional cases visible.
Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation
“Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are...”
In plain language: life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices
This verse uses two-part parallelism to place “Hell and destruction are never full” beside “so the eyes of man are never satisfied”.
Why it matters: This wording gives the verse its distinct role inside the cluster.
How certain? strongWhat Remains True
Proverbs traces the cumulative direction of choices toward life-giving order or destructive consequence without claiming to explain every death or survival. In Proverbs 27:20, that bounded truth is expressed through “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are...,” not through a promise detached from its literary form.
How It Can Shape Life
- Choose the option that protects life, reduces foreseeable harm, preserves access to help, and keeps long-term consequences visible. For Proverbs 27:20, preserve the sequence: verse role (uses two-part parallelism to place “Hell and destruction are never full” beside “so the eyes of man are never satisfied”) -> contextual meaning in Proverbs 27:20–22 -> proportionate truth -> this accountable response.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Proverbs 27:20–22 — Life, death, safety, and the long direction of choices — Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man...Sources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
Where care is needed
This sentence saying states a context-shaped moral pattern. Its small-cluster boundary and degree of generality remain reviewable; exceptional outcomes do not make the observation meaningless or turn it into a guarantee.
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 27:20–22, 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 27:20-27:22
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. 1168-1171, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 27:20–22
Open source ↗