This will bring healing to your body and refreshment to your bones.
Parallel translations
- WEB It will be health to your body, and nourishment to your bones.
- KJV It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
- NKJV It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.
- NASB It will be healing to your body And refreshment to your bones.
- NLT Then you will have healing for your body and strength for your bones.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Fearing God and shunning evil brings health to the body and refreshment to the bones. It matters because godly living benefits the whole person.
Overview
The reverent, obedient life described in verse 7 yields well-being, here pictured as bodily health and refreshment. Proverbs often links wisdom with general flourishing, though not as an absolute promise. It reflects the truth that God's ways are good for those who walk in them.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Prov 4:22For they are life to those who find them, and health to the whole body.
- Ps 147:3He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
- Prov 16:24Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
- Job 21:24His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow.
- Ezek 16:4–5On the day of your birth your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing. You were not rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths.
- Isa 1:6From the sole of your foot to the top of your head, there is no soundness—only wounds and welts and festering sores neither cleansed nor bandaged nor soothed with oil.
- Jer 30:12–13For this is what the LORD says: “Your injury is incurable; your wound is grievous.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 3:8 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.