What Does Psalm 58:4 Mean in the King James?
Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
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 venom is not only in what they say: the image also shows an ear sealed against interruption.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes how harm travels now: venomous speech moves outward while the ear closes against what could restrain it. The adder’s deafness is pictured as an act of shutting its ear, so refusal to hear becomes part of the danger.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that harm lives only in the words spoken: the verse pairs venom with an ear deliberately closed to what could interrupt it.
THE ROOT
יַאְטֵם
yaʾṭēm
GROWS FROM
אטם
To stop up, close, or seal so that something cannot pass through.
“stoppeth” in this verse is yaʾṭēm. The Hebrew pictures the adder closing its ear, rather than merely lacking the ability to hear. The verse places venomous speech beside a seal, so the danger includes the refusal through which the harm goes uninterrupted.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāṭûm: Sealed, shut, or stopped up.
אָטוּם
This is the closed state the verse’s verb describes: the ear has become impervious to a voice reaching it.
ʾăṭīmāh: Closure or sealing.
אֲטִימָה
The noun names the act of closing, making the adder’s deafness an image of a barrier being put in place.
THE PATTERN
Venomous speech carries harm outward, while a closed ear refuses the voice that could restrain it.
Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah.But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.THE THREAD
They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips. Selah.The word for “poison” here, חֲמַת (ḥămat, venom), is the same Hebrew word used for the adder’s poison in Psalm 140:3. That shared word binds serpent imagery to harmful speech; Psalm 58 adds the sealed ear, joining the venomous mouth to a refusal to hear.
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