This verse belongs to the YHWH run, Proverbs 16:1–9. One of the most quoted and most formula-read verses in Proverbs.
Quick answer
Roll your work onto the LORD, the Hebrew behind "commit" is literally "roll," and your plans find solid ground. A saying about transferred weight, not a success guarantee with a religious activation step.
Read both lines
The image is physical: the NKJV footnote preserves it, "commit" is literally roll, the word for a burden rolled off one back onto another. The works are still yours to do; the load-bearing is His. And notice what the proverb says gets established: not your outcomes, your thoughts. The person who has genuinely rolled a project onto the LORD stops lying awake managing seventeen imagined futures. The mind steadies because the weight moved. Within the run, the saying sits between 16:2 (the LORD weighs motives) and 16:9 (the LORD directs steps): committed work is work done inside that whole frame.
What it does not mean
The formula-reading runs the verse backward: dedicate your plan to God, and He is now committed to making it succeed. That reverses the direction of the rolling, the formula-reader rolls God onto his plans, while the proverb rolls the plans onto God, and those are different postures entirely. One recruits; the other surrenders. It also misreads the promise: thoughts are established, not profits guaranteed, and this same chapter shows planned ways overruled by the LORD six verses later (16:9) without any breach. Proverbs describes tendencies inside a relationship, never terms inside a contract.
From this side of the cross
The rolling has a New Testament name: "casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7). Never a technique for extracting outcomes; always the posture of a child whose Father can be trusted with the load.
Related: Proverbs 16:9 · Psalm 37:5 · 1 Peter 5:7
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.