What Does Psalm 58:6 Mean in the King James?
Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.
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 locates a predator’s force in its bite and asks for that force to be dismantled at the teeth.
THE MEANING
The prayer names the danger without disguise: the threatening mouths have teeth, and those teeth can wound. It asks God to break them inside the mouth and tear down the young lions’ fangs; the requested answer is violent and specific.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a threatening mouth is untouchable because it has teeth is undone here: the verse imagines the teeth themselves being broken.
THE ROOT
הָרְס
hāres
GROWS FROM
הרס
Tear down, demolish.
The KJV repeats “break,” while the Hebrew first uses הָרְס (hāres, tear down). The teeth themselves become the object of demolition: the image asks for the mouth’s means of harm to be torn down.
ALSO GROWS
hāras: To tear down or demolish.
הָרַס
The verse’s first command uses this root to turn the teeth into something that can be dismantled.
heres: Ruin or destruction.
הֶרֶס
This related form carries the image from breaking an object to bringing down what makes it dangerous.
נְתֹץ
netots
GROWS FROM
נתץ
Pull down, tear apart, demolish.
“Break out” in this verse is netots. The second command changes roots, though the KJV again says “break.” נְתֹץ (netots) adds the force of pulling something down, making the line a doubled request to dismantle the young lions’ fangs.
ALSO GROWS
nathats: To pull down or demolish.
נָתַץ
The same verb is used for pulling down structures; here the target is the fangs that make the lion’s bite dangerous.
nittats: Be pulled down or dismantled.
נִתַּץ
This form shows the other side of the root: what is built or armed can also be taken apart.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pictures predatory force through the biting mouth and makes its teeth vulnerable to being broken.
Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions, are broken.There is a generation, whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men.THE THREAD
Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.Both verses make the teeth of hostile power the target of breaking. Psalm 58 sharpens the picture with the young lion’s fangs and two distinct demolishing verbs; Psalm 3 names the teeth of the ungodly.
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