What Does Psalm 68:23 Mean in the King James?
That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same.
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 makes victory impossible to sanitize: blood marks the feet, and dogs lick it.
THE MEANING
You are given an image of triumph with no veil over its violence: the enemies’ blood reaches the foot, and the dogs’ tongues touch it. Victory remains physical and disturbing here, rather than becoming an abstract idea.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the expectation that divine triumph must always be pictured as bloodless or gentle.
THE ROOT
תְּמַחַץ
tĕmaḥaṣ
GROWS FROM
מחץ
To crush, strike through, or wound.
The verb rendered “dipped” comes from מָחַץ (māḥaṣ), meaning “to crush” or “strike through,” bringing the force of violent defeat into the image. The same root can describe a wound and a blow that strikes through; here it joins the blood beneath the foot to the language of crushing defeat.
ALSO GROWS
māḥaṣtî: “I have wounded,” in Deuteronomy 32:39.
מָחַצְתִּי
The same root connects the blood in this verse with the language of a wound.
ūmāḥăṣāh: Jael’s blow through Sisera’s temples, in Judges 5:26.
וּמָחֲצָה
This branch shows the root’s force in an image of bodily violence and decisive defeat.
THE PATTERN
Scripture sometimes depicts divine victory through the bodily, bloody defeat of its enemies, without hiding the violence in the image.
He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.THE THREAD
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples.The Hebrew verb translated “stricken through” uses מחץ (māḥaṣ), the same root as the verb behind “dipped” here. That shared root links the blood underfoot to scripture’s direct language for a blow that crushes and pierces.
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