What Does Psalm 57:6 Mean in the King James?
They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.
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 trap can be laid across your path while its makers are already on course to fall into it.
THE MEANING
Your path is targeted, and your living self bends under that pressure. At the same time, the pit dug before you becomes the place where its makers fall. The verse holds the pressure and its reversal together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that your bowed-down living self proves the trap-setters control the outcome is undone by their own fall.
THE ROOT
נַפְשִׁי
nafshi
GROWS FROM
נפש
The living self: a person, living being, or appetite.
נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, living soul) can name the whole living being and even its appetite; the bowed thing is the speaker’s living self, not a detachable inner fragment. The wording echoes נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, my living self) with נָפְלוּ (naflu, they fell): both open with נ־פ (n-p), though they have different roots, placing the speaker’s bending beside the plotters’ fall.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living being, person, or self.
נֶפֶשׁ
Genesis 2:7 calls the human a נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה (nefesh chayyah, living soul), showing that “soul” can name the whole living being.
nefesh: Appetite or desire.
נֶפֶשׁ
Proverbs 23:2 renders this word as “appetite,” showing that the same living self includes its longing.
נָפְלוּ
naflu
GROWS FROM
נפל
To fall, drop, or collapse.
“fallen” in this verse is naflu. The fall is the outcome of those who prepared the danger. The same verb-root names their reversal, while מַפָּלָה (mappalah, downfall) extends the image from a single fall to collapse.
ALSO GROWS
naphal: To fall or fall down.
נָפַל
The plural form נָפְלוּ (naflu, they fell) uses this verb-root for the people who set the trap.
mappalah: Collapse, downfall, or ruin.
מַפָּלָה
This noun widens the image from a fall to a collapse, matching the makers’ reversal of position.
THE PATTERN
What a person sets in motion can return as a consequence that person must meet.
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.Psalm 7:15 uses נָפַל (naphal, to fall) for the maker who falls into his own excavation, the same verb-root used here for the plotters’ fall. The shared root makes the reversal concrete: the fall they set in motion becomes their own outcome.
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