What Does Psalm 7:16 Mean in the King James?
His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.
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 pictures harm as a force with a return path: what is sent outward comes back down upon the one who set it moving.
THE MEANING
The trouble a person works and the violence they send outward return onto their own head. The paired images, returning and coming down, make the source of the violence its landing place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that I can send harm outward and remain untouched by what I set in motion.
THE ROOT
יָשׁוּב
yāšûḇ
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
To turn back or return.
The Hebrew makes return the verse’s central motion: the trouble does not simply stop but turns back toward its source. The same root also forms words for turning or returning, so the verse’s consequence follows a path of reversal.
ALSO GROWS
yāšûḇ: He will return.
יָשׁוּב
This is the verse’s own word: the mischief turns back toward the one who made it.
teshuvah: Return or turning.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This related form makes the root’s turning motion visible in the verse’s image of harm circling back.
חֲמָסוֹ
ḥămāsô
GROWS FROM
חָמַס
To act violently or wrongfully; violence or wrongful force.
“violent dealing” in this verse is ḥămāsô. The word holds both violence and wrongful action, giving the harm the shape of something actively done. What comes down upon the perpetrator is the very force he has put into motion.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāmās: Violence or wrongful force.
חָמָס
This noun names the violent force that the verse says descends back upon its maker.
ḥāmas: To act violently or wrongfully.
חָמַס
The related verb points to violence as an action set in motion, not merely a condition.
עֲמָלוֹ
ʿămālô
GROWS FROM
עָמַל
To toil or labor; toil, trouble, or hardship.
The root gives “mischief” the additional shade of trouble that is worked into being. The verse pictures that trouble returning as the consequence of what its maker has labored to set in motion.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāmāl: Toil, trouble, or hardship.
עָמָל
This noun shows the range beneath “mischief”: trouble can be something produced through a person’s effort.
ʿāmēl: One who toils or labors.
עָמֵל
This related form keeps the maker of the trouble in view, matching the verse’s return to its source.
THE PATTERN
What a person sets in motion can return as consequence upon its maker.
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.THE THREAD
And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the LORD, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil: for the LORD hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife.This verse pairs שׁוּב (shuv, “return”) with רֹאשׁ (rosh, “head”), echoing the psalm’s return-to-the-head image. The shared wording makes the returning path explicit: the wickedness comes back to the one who set it in motion.
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