What Does Psalm 10:15 Mean?
Break the arm of the wicked and the evil one; seek out his wickedness until you find none.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Break thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man: seek out his wickedness till thou find none.THE KEY
The verse reaches beyond disarming the wicked: it seeks the wickedness itself until it can no longer be found.
THE MEANING
The verse is a present-tense plea for the wicked person’s power to be broken and his wickedness pursued until none is found. Its demand reaches both the means of harm and the wrongdoing itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that disabling one act of harm is enough while the wrongdoing behind it remains untouched.
THE ROOT
תִּדְרוֹשׁ
tidrosh
GROWS FROM
דרש
To seek, inquire into, or investigate; in some uses, to require or demand.
“seek out his wickedness” in this verse is tidrosh. The word carries the force of inquiry, not a passing glance. The plea presses the search into wickedness until there is nothing left to find.
ALSO GROWS
darash: Seek or inquire.
דָּרַשׁ
This is the root verb behind “seek out,” showing that the verse calls for a deliberate search.
derishah: Inquiry or demand.
דְּרִישָׁה
This branch holds seeking and demanding together, echoing the verse’s insistence that the search reach its end.
רִשְׁעוֹ
rish'o
GROWS FROM
רשע
To act wickedly or be guilty; wrongdoing.
“seek out his wickedness” in this verse is rish'o. The same root names both the wicked person and his wickedness. The verse connects the agent of harm with the wrongdoing itself, then calls for that wrongdoing to disappear.
ALSO GROWS
rashaʿ: A wicked person.
רָשָׁע
The verse uses this related form for the person whose arm is to be broken.
reshaʿ: Wickedness or wrongdoing.
רֶשַׁע
This form names what the plea asks to be searched out until none remains.
THE PATTERN
The demand reaches both harmful agency and the wrongdoing behind it, until the wrongdoing has no remainder.
Let the evil of the wicked now be spent, and set the aligned one firm, for the aligned God tests the hearts and kidneys.In those days, and in that time, says the LORD, the crookedness of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none. The shortcomings of Judah shall be sought for, and they shall not be found, for I will release the remnant I leave behind.The one who practices falling short is from the Slanderer, for the Slanderer keeps missing the mark from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was made visible, that he might unbind the works of the Slanderer.THE THREAD
Let the evil of the wicked now be spent, and set the aligned one firm, for the aligned God tests the hearts and kidneys.The Hebrew root רשע appears in both verses for “wicked” and “wickedness,” tying the person to the wrongdoing. Psalm 7 asks for that wrongdoing to end; Psalm 10 voices the demand as a search that continues until none is found.
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