Limitless Word
Bind them on your fingers; Write them on the tablet of your heart.
Proverbs 7:3 · New American Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB Bind them on your fingers. Write them on the tablet of your heart.
  • KJV Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.
  • BSB Tie them to your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.
  • NKJV Bind them on your fingers; Write them on the tablet of your heart.
  • NLT Tie them on your fingers as a reminder. Write them deep within your heart.

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

Bind this teaching to your fingers and write it on your heart. Let wisdom shape both your actions and your inmost being.

Overview

The son is to keep wisdom ever near his hands and inscribed upon his heart, recalling the Law's command to internalize God's word. The imagery joins outward practice with inward devotion. It anticipates the new covenant promise that God writes His law on His people's hearts.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 8

  • Deut 11:18–20Therefore you shall lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul. You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.
  • Prov 3:3Don’t let kindness and truth forsake you. Bind them around your neck. Write them on the tablet of your heart.
  • Deut 6:8–9You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.
  • Jer 31:33“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people:
  • 2 Cor 3:3being revealed that you are a letter of Christ, served by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone, but in tablets that are hearts of flesh.
  • Isa 30:8Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come forever and ever.
  • Prov 6:21Bind them continually on your heart. Tie them around your neck.
  • Jer 17:1“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond. It is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (4)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Proverbs videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Proverbs 7:3YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on ProverbsMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    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 7:3 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.