Proverbs 25:16
New International Version
If you find honey, eat just enough— too much of it, and you will vomit.

New Living Translation
Do you like honey? Don’t eat too much, or it will make you sick!

English Standard Version
If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.

Berean Standard Bible
If you find honey, eat just what you need, lest you have too much and vomit it up.

King James Bible
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.

New King James Version
Have you found honey? Eat only as much as you need, Lest you be filled with it and vomit.

New American Standard Bible
Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, So that you do not have it in excess and vomit it.

NASB 1995
Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, That you not have it in excess and vomit it.

NASB 1977
Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, Lest you have it in excess and vomit it.

Legacy Standard Bible
Have you found honey? Eat only enough for you, Lest you have more than your fill and vomit it.

Amplified Bible
Have you found [pleasure sweet like] honey? Eat only as much as you need, Otherwise, being filled excessively, you vomit it.

Christian Standard Bible
If you find honey, eat only what you need; otherwise, you’ll get sick from it and vomit.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
If you find honey, eat only what you need; otherwise, you’ll get sick from it and vomit.

American Standard Version
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, Lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Whenever you have found honey, eat enough for you, lest when you are full, you vomit it.

Brenton Septuagint Translation
Having found honey, eat only what is enough, lest haply thou be filled, and vomit it up.

Contemporary English Version
Eating too much honey can make you sick.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Thou hast found honey, eat what is sufficient for thee, lest being glutted therewith thou vomit it up.

English Revised Version
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee; lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
When you find honey, eat only as much as you need. Otherwise, you will have too much and vomit.

Good News Translation
Never eat more honey than you need; too much may make you vomit.

International Standard Version
If you find some honey, eat only what you need. Take too much, and you'll vomit.

JPS Tanakh 1917
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, Lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.

Literal Standard Version
You have found honey—eat your sufficiency, | Lest you are satiated [with] it, and have vomited it.

Majority Standard Bible
If you find honey, eat just what you need, lest you have too much and vomit it up.

New American Bible
If you find honey, eat only what you need, lest you have your fill and vomit it up.

NET Bible
When you find honey, eat only what is sufficient for you, lest you become stuffed with it and vomit it up.

New Revised Standard Version
If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, or else, having too much, you will vomit it.

New Heart English Bible
Have you found honey? Eat as much as is sufficient for you, lest you eat too much, and vomit it.

Webster's Bible Translation
Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled with it, and vomit it.

World English Bible
Have you found honey? Eat as much as is sufficient for you, lest you eat too much, and vomit it.

Young's Literal Translation
Honey thou hast found -- eat thy sufficiency, Lest thou be satiated with it, and hast vomited it.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
More Proverbs of Solomon
15Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone. 16If you find honey, eat just what you need, lest you have too much and vomit it up. 17Seldom set foot in your neighbor’s house, lest he grow weary and hate you.…

Cross References
Judges 14:8
When Samson returned later to take her, he left the road to see the lion's carcass, and in it was a swarm of bees, along with their honey.

1 Samuel 14:25
Then all the troops entered the forest, and there was honey on the ground.

Proverbs 23:8
You will vomit up what little you have eaten and waste your pleasant words.

Proverbs 24:13
Eat honey, my son, for it is good, and the honeycomb is sweet to your taste.

Proverbs 25:17
Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house, lest he grow weary and hate you.

Ecclesiastes 7:16
Do not be overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?


Treasury of Scripture

Have you found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for you, lest you be filled therewith, and vomit it.

hath

Proverbs 24:13,14
My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste: …

Judges 14:8,9
And after a time he returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of the lion: and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion…

1 Samuel 14:25-27
And all they of the land came to a wood; and there was honey upon the ground…

lest

Proverbs 26:27
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.

Proverbs 23:8
The morsel which thou hast eaten shalt thou vomit up, and lose thy sweet words.

Luke 21:34
And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

Jump to Previous
Able Eat Enough Excess Fear Filled Find Found Full Honey Need Sated Satiated Sufficiency Sufficient Therewith Vomit Vomited
Jump to Next
Able Eat Enough Excess Fear Filled Find Found Full Honey Need Sated Satiated Sufficiency Sufficient Therewith Vomit Vomited
Proverbs 25
1. observations about kings
8. and about avoiding causes of quarrels














(16) Hast thou found honey?--A common occurrence in Palestine, where swarms of wild bees abounded in the woods. (Comp. Judges 14:8; 1Samuel 14:27.) Hence came the expression of a "land flowing with (milk and) honey."

Verse 16. - Hast thou found honey? Honey would be found in crevices of rocks, in hollow trees (1 Samuel 14:27), or in more unlikely situations (Judges 14:8), and was extensively used as an article of food. All travellers in Palestine note the great abundance of bees therein, and how well it answers to its description as "a land flowing with milk and honey." Eat so much as is sufficient for thee. The agreeable sweetness of honey might lead the finder to eat too much of it. Against such excess the moralist warns: Lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. Thus wrote Pindar, 'Nem.,' 7:51 -

Ἀλλὰ γὰρ ἀνάπαυσις ἐν παντὶ γλυκεῖα ἔργῳκόρον δ ἔχει
Καὶ μέλι καὶ τὰ τέρπν ἄνθε Ἀφροδισια. Μηδὲν ἄγαν, Ne quid nimis, is a maxim continually urged by those who wished to teach moderation. Says Homer, 'Iliad,' 13:636 -

"Men are with all things sated - sleep, and love,
Sweet sounds of music, and the joyous dance."

(Lord Derby.) Says Horace, 'Sat.,' 1:1, 106 -

"Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines,
Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum?"
The honey is a figure of all that pleases the senses; but the maxim is to be extended beyond physical matters, though referring primarily to such pleasures. The mind may be overloaded as well as the body: only such instruction as can be digested and assimilated is serviceable to the spiritual nature; injudicious cramming produces satiety and disgust. Again, "To 'find honey,'" says St. Gregory ('Moral.,' 16:8), "is to taste the sweetness of holy intelligence, which is eaten enough of then when our perception, according to the measure of our faculty, is held tight under control. For he is 'filled with honey, and vomits it' who, in seeking to dive deeper than he has capacity for, loses that too from whence he might have derived nourishment." And in another place (ibid., 20:18), "The sweetness of spiritual meaning he who seeks to eat beyond what he contains, even what he had eaten he 'vomiteth;' because, whilst he seeks to make out things above, beyond his powers, even the things that he had made out aright, he forfeits" (Oxford transl.).

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
If you find
מָ֭צָאתָ (mā·ṣā·ṯā)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - second person masculine singular
Strong's 4672: To come forth to, appear, exist, to attain, find, acquire, to occur, meet, be present

honey,
דְּבַ֣שׁ (də·ḇaš)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 1706: Honey, syrup

eat
אֱכֹ֣ל (’ĕ·ḵōl)
Verb - Qal - Imperative - masculine singular
Strong's 398: To eat

just what you need,
דַּיֶּ֑ךָּ (day·ye·kā)
Noun - masculine singular construct | second person masculine singular
Strong's 1767: Sufficiency, enough

lest
פֶּן־ (pen-)
Conjunction
Strong's 6435: Removal, lest

you have too much
תִּ֝שְׂבָּעֶ֗נּוּ (tiś·bā·‘en·nū)
Verb - Qal - Imperfect - second person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
Strong's 7646: To be sated, satisfied or surfeited

and vomit it up.
וַהֲקֵֽאתֽוֹ׃ (wa·hă·qê·ṯōw)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Hifil - Conjunctive perfect - second person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
Strong's 6958: Spue out, vomit out, up, up again


Links
Proverbs 25:16 NIV
Proverbs 25:16 NLT
Proverbs 25:16 ESV
Proverbs 25:16 NASB
Proverbs 25:16 KJV

Proverbs 25:16 BibleApps.com
Proverbs 25:16 Biblia Paralela
Proverbs 25:16 Chinese Bible
Proverbs 25:16 French Bible
Proverbs 25:16 Catholic Bible

OT Poetry: Proverbs 25:16 Have you found honey? Eat as much (Prov. Pro Pr)
Proverbs 25:15
Top of Page
Top of Page