What Does Psalm 58:8 Mean in the King James?

As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

Psalm 58:8 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The verse imagines the wicked not merely passing away, but dissolving before they ever see the light.

THE MEANING

This verse gives you a severe image of the people it calls wicked: they melt like a snail and pass away like a life that never sees the sun. Its wish is for their disappearance to come before they reach the light.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that destructive power is solid and enduring; here, it loses its form and passes away.

THE ROOT

תֶּמֶס

temes

GROWS FROM

מסס

To melt or dissolve, losing form and cohesion.

“melteth” in this verse is temes. The root ties the snail’s melting to the melting of mountains and hearts elsewhere in scripture. The image makes disappearance a loss of form: what seems present can dissolve before it reaches the light.

ALSO GROWS

namassu: The mountains melt in Micah 1:4.

נָמַסּוּ

The same root describes even mountains losing their solid form.

wayyimmass: The people’s hearts melt in Joshua 2:11.

וַיִּמַּס

The root also describes resolve dissolving, linking bodily and inward loss of form.

THE PATTERN

What seems solid can dissolve and disappear before it reaches the light.

And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.

Micah 1:4 · KJVThe same Hebrew root describes mountains losing their form, extending the image of dissolution to what appears immovable.

The wicked shall see it, and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.

Psalm 112:10 · KJVThe same melt-away root depicts the wicked losing form as their desire perishes.

For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

James 1:11 · KJVAs the sun rises, the flower fades and the rich man passes away, joining light with the loss of what once seemed to flourish.

THE THREAD

The wicked shall see it, and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.

Psalm 112:10 · KJV

Psalm 112:10 uses the same Hebrew root, ⁨מָסַס⁩ (masas), meaning “melt” or “dissolve,” for “melt away.” The shared root reveals a recurring image: the wicked lose their form and perish.

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