What Does Psalm 105:18 Mean?
They bent his feet in fetters; into iron his living soul came.
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
Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron:THE KEY
The verse moves from fettered feet to the living self entering iron, showing confinement reaching the whole person.
THE MEANING
Your movement is pictured bound at the feet, and your living self is pictured entering iron. The verse holds physical restraint and the experience of being held together as one reality.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The restraint is only physical and leaves the living self untouched.
THE ROOT
בָּאָה
ba'ah came or
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
Come, enter, arrive
“came into” in this verse is ba'ah came or. The phrase rendered “he was laid in iron” also carries the motion of coming or entering. The living self is pictured crossing into iron, so confinement becomes an arrival that reaches the person, not only a restraint around the feet.
ALSO GROWS
bo: to come, enter
בּוֹא
This is the root verb behind the movement into iron.
mavo: entrance, entryway
מָבוֹא
This noun from the same root keeps the image of crossing into a bounded place.
נַפְשׁוֹ
nafsho his living
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
The living self, the person
“living soul” in this verse is nafsho his living. Nefesh names the living person, so the restraint reaches beyond the feet to the whole self. A verb from this root can mean to rest or be refreshed, making the image of iron feel like a loss of room for respite.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: living soul, person
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the living self the verse pictures entering iron.
naphash: to rest, be refreshed
נָפַשׁ
This related verb sharpens the contrast between respite and a life enclosed by iron.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes confinement tangible through restraints on the body and the iron or affliction surrounding a person’s life.
Those who sit in darkness and in the valley of deepest darkness, bound and bowed low in iron.And if they are bound in fetters, and caught in cords of affliction;He, having received such a charge, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the wood.THE THREAD
To bind their kings in chains, and their nobles in cords of iron.The Hebrew word כַּבְלֵי (kavlei, fetters) here and כֶּבֶל (kevel, fetter) in Psalm 105:18 share the root כבל (k-b-l, to bind). The repeated root joins the image of iron to the act of binding, making the restraint around a person visible.
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