What Does Psalm 58:3 Mean in the King James?
The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
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 lie is the audible end of an older estrangement: the mouth speaks what the life has already wandered into.
THE MEANING
The verse places a stark claim before you: the wicked are estranged from the womb, go astray from the beginning, and speak lies. Its sequence makes false speech the audible expression of a life already disoriented.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that lying is merely a momentary speech failure: here the lie grows from a deeper estrangement that has already become a way of wandering.
THE ROOT
זֹרוּ
zoru
GROWS FROM
זור
zûr
To be a stranger, turn aside, or become estranged.
“estranged” in this verse is zoru. The English word hides the kinship with זָר (zar), “stranger”: estrangement is a state of living as an outsider, not merely doing something wrong. The verse says that this dislocation reaches back to the womb.
ALSO GROWS
zar: A stranger or outsider.
זָר
This branch makes estrangement a condition of strangerhood: being outside relation.
zûr: To turn aside or become estranged.
זוּר
This verb gives the verse’s estrangement a movement: a life turns away before it wanders.
תָּעוּ
ta'u
GROWS FROM
תעה
ta'ah
To wander, err, or lose the way.
“go astray” in this verse is ta'u. The verse moves from estrangement into motion: the person does not only stand apart but wanders. This same root can describe someone who errs, making the lost way a condition a person inhabits.
ALSO GROWS
to'eh: One who wanders or goes astray.
תֹּעֶה
The root can name the person by the movement itself: a wanderer.
ta'inu: We have gone astray.
תָּעִינוּ
Isaiah 53:6 uses this form for a shared wandering, showing the root can describe a path people recognize in themselves.
כָזָב
kazav
GROWS FROM
כזב
k-z-b
To lie, prove false, or fail.
“lies” in this verse is kazav. In this root, a lie is not only an untrue sentence; it is something that fails to hold or deliver. The same root names a stream that fails, so falsehood is like a source that promises water and runs dry.
ALSO GROWS
kazav: To lie, deceive, or prove false.
כָּזַב
The verb carries the lie from a spoken claim into the deeper idea of something that cannot be trusted to hold true.
akhzav: A failing brook or stream that runs dry.
אַכְזָב
Jeremiah 15:18 uses this related form for a source that disappoints, linking falsehood with what promises nourishment but fails to give it.
THE PATTERN
Speech gives outward form to the inward condition a person carries.
Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that deal truly are his delight.A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.THE THREAD
Do they not err that devise evil? but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good.Proverbs uses the same Hebrew root תעה (ta’ah, to wander or err) that Psalm 58:3 uses for “go astray.” The shared word links a person’s direction with the path they take: devising evil is already a form of wandering.
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