What Does Psalm 106:33 Mean?
For they embittered his breath, so that he blurted with his lips.
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
Because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips.THE KEY
The verse links rebellion against the breath to words that escape the lips before they are weighed.
THE MEANING
This verse names a living chain: resistance stirs the breath, and words leave the lips before discernment catches them. The mouth makes audible what the inner life is carrying.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that rash words are only a momentary failure of the mouth; the verse traces them to pressure already moving through the breath.
THE ROOT
הִמְרוּ
himru
GROWS FROM
מָרָה
marah
To rebel, resist, or contend against.
“embittered” in this verse is himru. The verb carries rebellion and resistance, giving “provoked” the shape of opposition. That resistance reaches his breath, and what follows is speech released without care.
ALSO GROWS
meri: Rebellion.
מְרִי
It names the resistance contained in the verb rendered “provoked.”
morim: Rebels.
מֹרִים
The same root appears in Moses’ address to the people in Numbers 20:10, linking the provocation with rebellion.
רוּחוֹ
rucho
GROWS FROM
רוּחַ
ruach
Breath, wind, moving air.
Ruach names breath and wind with one word, so “his spirit” keeps bodily breathing in view. The next clause places that breath beside lips and utterance: inner disturbance becomes audible speech.
ALSO GROWS
ruach qadim: An east wind.
רוּחַ קָדִים
The word for spirit also names moving wind.
ruach chayyim: The breath of life.
רוּחַ חַיִּים
This phrase shows ruach as the breath that animates life.
בִּשְׂפָתָיו
bisfataiv
GROWS FROM
שָׂפָה
safah
Lip, edge, or language.
The Hebrew word for lips also names language and the edge of a shore. Speech is pictured at a boundary: what is carried within crosses outward through the lips.
ALSO GROWS
safah: Language or speech.
שָׂפָה
The same word used for a lip can name the language spoken by a people.
sefat hayam: The shore, or edge of the sea.
שְׂפַת הַיָּם
This use reveals the lip as an edge where what is contained meets what lies beyond.
THE PATTERN
When agitation reaches the mouth before discernment, words come out rashly.
Do not let your mouth be startled, and do not let your heart hurry to bring a word out before the face of God. For God is in the heavens, and you are on the earth. Therefore let your words be few.Do you see a man who rushes with his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, Hear and respond now, you rebels. Shall we bring out waters for you from this rock?“Provoked” and “rebels” come from the same Hebrew root of resistance. This connection places Moses’ rash words within the same rebellion named in the people, showing how their resistance reaches his breath and speech.
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