What Does Psalm 106:11 Mean?
And the waters covered those who pressed them, and not one of them remained.
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
And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left.THE KEY
The word for enemies carries the root of binding and pressure, and here that constricting force is submerged without remainder.
THE MEANING
The waters cover the enemies completely, and not one remains. The verse holds the reader before a stark image of total defeat: no adversary stands outside the water.
THE ROOT
צָרֵיהֶם
tsarehem
GROWS FROM
צרר
צָרַר (tsarar): bind, tie up, press, or vex; this consonantal family also names an adversary or oppressor.
“those who pressed them” in this verse is tsarehem. The enemy word is related to the doubled root צרר, whose verb means to bind, press, or vex. The verse names a constricting force and shows it completely engulfed, with not one left.
ALSO GROWS
tsarar: To bind, tie up, press, or vex.
צָרַר
This verb makes the binding and pressure carried by the related enemy word visible.
tseror: A bundle or tied packet.
צְרוֹר
The same consonants name something bound together, revealing the root’s physical sense of binding.
THE PATTERN
The same waters carry the pursued through and drown the force pursuing them.
And the waters turned back and covered the chariots and the horsemen, all the army of the Great House that came after them into the sea; not even one of them remained.By trust they stepped across the Red Sea as over dry land, which the Egyptians, making the attempt, were swallowed down.THE THREAD
You lay out a table before my face, in full view of those who press me. You make my head rich with oil; my cup is soaked full.Psalm 23 uses the same Hebrew enemy term from the צרר (tsarar, bind or press) family: there, the constrictors remain in view beside the table. Here, the waters cover them completely, carrying the binding-pressure image to its stark end.
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