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In this video, we answer the question: What does it mean that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” in Proverbs 23:7?
Source Article: https://www.gotquestions.org/as-a-man-thinks-so-is-he.html
Mentioned Links: https://www.gotquestions.org/septuagint.html
What does, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he mean? We're going to answer that question and you can also discover more on GotQuestions .org.
Maybe you've heard the expression, you are what you eat. In a nutritional sense, this statement may be accurate.
Proverbs 23 .7 seems to suggest a different but related truth that we are what we think.
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Unfortunately, the KJV fails to give contemporary readers a precise understanding of what the ninth wise saying of Solomon really means.
The context of the saying provides insight. Do not eat the bread of a miser, nor desire his delicacies.
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink, he says to you, but his heart is not with you.
The morsel you have eaten you will vomit up, and waste your pleasant words. Note that the context has to do with the understanding the heart of a miser, or a stingy person.
The ESV translates the same passage, for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.
The Hebrew verb translated thinketh in the authorized version, means estimate or calculate.
The clause might more accurately be rendered, he is like one who is inwardly calculating.
The he is the stingy miser, the begrudging host who is always thinking about the cost of the meal he shares.
Modern translations indicate that craving such a man's delicacies is dangerous because his generosity is false.
His welcome is warm, but his heart is not in it. He is not glad to see you enjoying his fare, rather he is watching every bite you take and calculating the cost the whole time.
You want to spit out your food because what was offered so freely was begrudgingly served.
All of your kind compliments were wasted. Wilmington's Bible Handbook aptly sums up the saying like so.
A dinner invitation from a miser is just as well turned down. Your efforts at friendship will be wasted on him or her.
In the Septuagint, translators applied a different meaning. Sup not with an envious man, neither desire thou his meats, so he eats and drinks as if anyone should swallow a hare, and do not bring him in to thyself, nor eat thy morsel with him, for he will vomit it up and spoil thy fair words.
Greek translators took Solomon's instruction as a warning against inviting an envious or gluttonous man to dine at your table.
The Hebrew words translated produce a phrasing such as, for they will stick in your throat like a hare.
Just like getting a hare caught in your throat, dining with an envious man may leave you feeling disgusted.
Translators are divided on exactly what, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, means.
A warning against eating with a calculating, stingy person, or with an envious person who will likely leave one feeling sick.
Either way, the general instruction is to be cautious about whom you fellowship with. That answers the question, what does, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he, mean?
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