Verse Lens · Context pointer
Proverbs 28:5 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 5. 5Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the LORD understand all things.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Role in This Section
This verse uses contrastive parallelism to place “Evil men understand not judgment” against “they that seek the LORD understand all things”.
Read It With
- Proverbs 28:4–7
Read Proverbs 28:5 with 28:4–7. Read alone, “Evil men understand not judgment: but they that seek the LORD…” could turn a compressed observation, warning, comparison, or command into a guarantee or complete policy. The full unit establishes: uses contrastive parallelism to place “They that forsake the law praise the wicked” against “such as keep the law contend with them”; by 28:7, it uses contrastive parallelism to place “Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son” against “he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father”. Together the unit concentrates on justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation, reverent accountability before the LORD, wealth, poverty, provision, and economic power within “Solomonic sayings copied by Hezekiah's men.”
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 28:4–7 — Justice, truthful judgment, and protection from exploitation — They that forsake the law praise the wicked: but such as…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 28:4–7, 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 28:4-28:7
Open source ↗