Even a king, who is thought to control the lives and destinies of his people, is himself under the control of the Lord.

“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord“: “Heart” refers to a person’s thoughts and decisions rather than emotions. “The hand of the Lord” is a figure of speech meaning that the Lord has power or is in control. So the thought of this line is that the Lord controls the decisions and actions of kings and rulers. “A stream of water” is a metaphor that expresses the same thought in picture language. The “stream” is a channel or canal rather than a large river; the details of the picture are continued in the next line.

“He turns it wherever he will”: In most English versions the use of the pronoun “he” is ambiguous in this line. “He” refers to the Lord, who directs the decisions of the king in whatever way he wants. “Turns it wherever” continues the picture of the “stream”, likening the Lord‘s control of the king to the way people change the course of an irrigation channel or small watercourse to make it flow wherever they want. Apart from Revised Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version, most versions express the picture as a simile; for example, “He directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases” (New International Version). The picture is meant to show how easily the Lord can exercise his power or control: “. . . as easily as he directs the course of a stream” (Good News Translation). This is well brought out by the following restructured translation: “It is very easy for the Lord to make a river run wherever he wants; and in the same way it is easy for him to control the thinking of a king, to lead him in the way he wants him to go.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Proverbs. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .