Focused Passage

Proverbs 20:2

The LORD Searches the Heart: Sobriety, Justice, Counsel, Speech, and Honest Measures

The chapter moves from appetite and conflict, to hidden purposes and integrity, to royal justice and human impurity, to work and speech, to surety, fraud, counsel, and gossip, to family honor, inheritance, vengeance, and dishonest scales, and finally to providence, vows, royal judgment, the LORD's searching lamp, and painful correction.

Berean Standard Bible, Public Domain - Translation notes - Reference sources

2 The terror of a king is like the roar of a lion; whoever provokes him forfeits his own life.

Study Helps

References and Original Words

Verse 2

Original words

The terror אֵ֣ימַת H367 Noun - feminine singular construct of a king מֶ֑לֶךְ H4428 Noun - masculine singular is like the roar נַ֣הַם H5099 Noun - masculine singular of a lion כַּ֭כְּפִיר H3715 Preposition-k, Article | Noun - masculine singular whoever provokes [him] מִ֝תְעַבְּר֗וֹ H5674 Verb - Hitpael - Participle - masculine singular construct | third person masculine singular forfeits חוֹטֵ֥א H2398 Verb - Qal - Participle - masculine singular his own life נַפְשֽׁוֹ׃ H5315 Noun - feminine singular construct | third person masculine singular

BSB notes

  • Literally sins against his own soul

Berean Standard Bible (BSB): CC0 Public Domain Scripture text. Focused passages are drawn from the same reader contract as the full chapter. Reference sources explains external study-link sources.