What Does Psalm 105:31 Mean?
He said, and a mixed swarm came, and lice in all their borders.
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
He spake, and there came divers sorts of flies, and lice in all their coasts.THE KEY
Here God’s word is not commentary about the swarm; it is the force by which the swarm enters every border.
THE MEANING
The verse presents God’s speech as an event-bearing force: the swarm arrives when he speaks. It fills the whole territory, reaching every boundary; the affliction is neither mild nor contained.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that this plague is an ungoverned force: the verse says it arrives at God’s spoken word.
THE ROOT
אָמַר
amar
GROWS FROM
א־מ־ר
ʾ-m-r
To say, speak, or utter.
“said” in this verse is amar. The verse joins God’s saying directly to the swarm’s arrival. The word is not a report about what happens next; the sentence presents the utterance as carrying the event into the whole territory.
ALSO GROWS
imrah: Utterance, saying.
אִמְרָה
This branch keeps speech concrete: an utterance is something spoken, and here what is spoken takes effect.
ma'amar: Saying, statement.
מַאֲמָר
This branch echoes the verse’s movement from a spoken statement to a swarm that fills the land.
וַיָּבֹא
vayyavo
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
To come, enter, or arrive.
English “came” can sound like simple movement toward a place, while בוא also carries the sense of entering. Paired with “in all their coasts,” the word shows the swarm as an incursion that reaches the entire bounded territory.
ALSO GROWS
bi'ah: Coming, arrival, or entry.
בִּיאָה
This branch brings out the force of the swarm’s arrival as an entry into the land.
mavo: Entrance or approach.
מָבוֹא
This branch echoes the way the creatures cross into the space enclosed by the borders.
THE PATTERN
Authoritative speech carries its declared outcome into reality.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.For he says, and it comes to be; he commands, and it stands.The commander of a hundred answered and said, Lord, I am not enough for you to come under my roof, but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.THE THREAD
For he says, and it comes to be; he commands, and it stands.Psalm 33:9 uses the same Hebrew verb אמר (amar, to speak) as “spake” here, and links it to what is done. Psalm 105 makes that outcome tangible: the swarm enters every border.
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