Proverbs 16:31
Gray hair is a crown of glory. It is attained by a life of righteousness.
WEB
The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.
KJV
What Proverbs 16:31 means
An old proverb from Israel's wisdom tradition calls gray hair a crown of glory when it crowns a life well lived, treating old age as an honor earned over time rather than mere decay.
Proverbs 16:31 belongs to the book of Proverbs, a collection of short, memorable sayings from Israel's wisdom tradition meant to teach the young how to live well. Many proverbs reward patience, honesty, and the long view, and this one turns that lens on old age. It pictures gray hair as a crown, the headpiece of someone honored, rather than a sign of fading.
In the ancient world, before written records and pensions, the old were a community's living memory and its store of hard-won wisdom. Age was treated as a kind of authority. The proverb does add a condition: the crown is "found in the way of righteousness." Long life on its own is not the glory; it is long life joined to a life lived well. The honor and the character are meant to grow together.
The Hebrew word for gray hair, sebah, simply means the whitening of age, and translations split on how to render the verse's second half. Some make the righteous life the path that leads to the crown; others make it the soil the crown grows in. Either way, the image resists the modern instinct to hide age. It frames the worn, white head as something a person earns and wears, the way a king wears a crown.