What Does Psalm 10:2 Mean in the King James?
The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew root דלק (dālaq, burn or pursue) gives the word “persecute” the heat of a fire at the vulnerable person’s back.
THE MEANING
This verse names a pattern that is alive now: pride raises one person over another and turns the vulnerable into the target of a heated chase. It voices a demand that the devices prepared for another close around the people who devised them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the powerful can pursue the vulnerable and leave their own designs untouched; the verse asks that those designs become the pursuers’ snare.
THE ROOT
יִדְלַק
yidlaq
GROWS FROM
דלק
dālaq
Burn or kindle; the same root also carries the sense of pursuing.
“persecute” in this verse is yidlaq. The verb יִדְלַק (yidlaq, pursues) belongs to a root that also means to burn or kindle. Persecution here is not a distant following: the word carries the heat and pressure of a chase.
ALSO GROWS
dālaq: Burn, kindle; pursue
דָּלַק
The root holds burning and pursuit together, giving the verse’s persecution a sense of heat.
dəlēqāh: Pursuit, chase
דְּלֵקָה
This noun from the same root makes the chase itself visible as an ongoing pressure.
מְזִמּוֹת
mezimmot
GROWS FROM
זמם
zāmam
Devise or plot.
The devices are contrived plans, from the same root as the verb “to plot.” The verse pictures those plans becoming the enclosure that catches their makers.
ALSO GROWS
zāmam: Devise, plot
זָמַם
The root verb names the act that produces the devices in the verse.
məzimmāh: Plan, device
מְזִמָּה
This singular form shares the root and names a plan shaped by intention.
בְּגַאֲוַת
bega'avat
GROWS FROM
גאה
gāʾāh
Rise, be high, exalt oneself.
The root of pride carries the motion of rising or being high. In this verse, self-exaltation becomes the posture from which the vulnerable are pursued.
ALSO GROWS
gāʾāh: Rise, be high, be exalted
גָּאָה
This verb shows the upward movement underneath the verse’s word for pride.
gaʾavāh: Pride, exaltation
גַּאֲוָה
This noun shares the root and makes explicit the self-elevation that drives the pursuit.
THE PATTERN
Plans set in motion against another can return upon the one who set them in motion.
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
And Jacob was wroth, and chode with Laban: and Jacob answered and said to Laban, What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued after me?Psalm 10:2 uses יִדְלַק (yidlaq, pursues), from the root דלק (dālaq, burn or pursue); Genesis 31:36 uses that same root in “hotly pursued.” The heat visible in Genesis brings out the pressure carried by the pursuit in this verse.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us