What Does Psalm 38:5 Mean in the King James?
My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.
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 verse refuses to separate a wound’s visible decay from the foolishness the speaker names as its cause.
THE MEANING
The verse holds your injury and your own foolishness together: the wounds are real, and the speaker names folly as part of why they stink and decay. Responsibility does not make the wound less real; the line lets both facts remain visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that admitting your part in a wound requires pretending that you are not hurt.
THE ROOT
נָמַקּוּ
nāmaqqū
GROWS FROM
מָקַק
To melt away, dissolve, or decay.
“are corrupt, decay” in this verse is nāmaqqū. The word translated “corrupt” carries the image of something losing its substance and melting away. Repeated in the verse, it makes the wounds’ decay feel like an ongoing undoing, not just a bad smell.
ALSO GROWS
maqaq: To melt away or decay.
מָקַק
The root form shows that corruption here includes a loss of firmness and substance.
yimmāq: Will melt away or be consumed (Zechariah 14:12).
יִמַּק
The same root describes flesh consuming away, giving this decay a bodily force.
wenāmaqqū: And they will be dissolved (Isaiah 34:4).
וְנָמַקּוּ
The same verb describes the heavens’ host dissolving, showing how fully the root can express things coming apart.
אִוַּלְתִּי
ʾiwwaltî
GROWS FROM
אול
Folly or foolishness; a failure of sound judgment.
The Hebrew says “my foolishness,” placing folly alongside the wounds as part of their cause. Its related words name both folly and the fool, so the language joins a way of thinking to the person living from it.
ALSO GROWS
ʾĕwîl: A fool, one characterized by folly.
אֱוִיל
The related word makes folly more than an isolated mistake; it can describe a way of being.
ʾiwwelet: Folly or foolishness.
אִוֶּלֶת
This noun shares the seed of the speaker’s “my foolishness,” tying the personal admission to the broader word for folly.
THE PATTERN
What takes root within can become visible as bodily harm and decay.
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.THE THREAD
And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.The Hebrew root translated “are corrupt” here appears as “shall be dissolved” in Isaiah. In both verses, it describes something losing its substance and coming apart.
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