What Does Psalm 62:9 Mean in the King James?
Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.
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 scale does not elevate the powerful: it exposes both ranks as lighter than vapor.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now: people of low and high rank alike are insubstantial, and together they weigh less than vapor. High standing is called a lie when it appears to promise lasting weight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that prominence makes someone more substantial is undone: the scale finds both ranks lighter than vapor.
THE ROOT
הֶבֶל
hevel
GROWS FROM
הבל
Vapor or insubstantiality: what seems present but cannot hold its form.
The verse uses the same word for human beings that can mean vapor: their apparent solidity disappears under the weighing. English “vanity” can sound like mere self-importance, but the image here is something so insubstantial that even the combined crowd weighs less than vapor.
ALSO GROWS
hevel: Vapor; something fleeting or insubstantial.
הֶבֶל
This is the word rendered “vanity” here: the scale reveals the human crowd’s vaporous weight.
havālim: Vanities; vaporous things, including idols (Jeremiah 10:8).
הֲבָלִים
The plural extends the image to things that seem to carry power or substance but cannot bear that claim.
Hevel: The name Abel, written with the same Hebrew word-form as “vapor.”
הֶבֶל
The name echoes the passage’s image of human life as fleeting.
כָּזָב
kazav
GROWS FROM
כזב
To be false, deceive, or fail to match what is claimed.
The verse calls the high-ranking “a lie,” giving their apparent stature a different texture from the low-ranking crowd’s vapor. The falsehood is the appearance of dependable weight: status promises substance that the balance cannot confirm.
ALSO GROWS
kazav: A lie or falsehood.
כָּזָב
This noun names the deceptive appearance attached to high rank in the verse.
yekhazev: To lie or prove false, as in Numbers 23:19.
יְכַזֵּב
The verbal form shows falsehood as a claim that fails to hold up; the scale tests the claim of status.
THE PATTERN
Human rank cannot make what is fleeting carry lasting weight.
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.THE THREAD
Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.The same Hebrew word, הֶבֶל (hevel, vapor or fleetingness), appears here and in Psalm 62:9. The scale’s image becomes temporal: human life is as fleeting as a shadow passing away, whatever its rank.
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