What Does Psalm 106:34 Mean?
They did not cut down the peoples about whom the LORD had said to them.
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
They did not destroy the nations, concerning whom the LORD commanded them:THE KEY
The root behind “destroy” makes the demand stark: make these peoples perish.
THE MEANING
This verse brings you to a command to destroy whole peoples and to the fact that they are not destroyed. The Hebrew verb names the demanded act as causing them to perish. The sentence leaves the violence of that command visible.
THE ROOT
הִשְׁמִידוּ
hishmidu
GROWS FROM
שׁמד
Destroy, annihilate, cause to perish.
“cut down” in this verse is hishmidu. The verb is in a causative form: the people are to make the nations perish. Its root names the demanded violence directly.
ALSO GROWS
hishmid: To destroy, cause to perish.
הִשְׁמִיד
This causative form makes the agents of destruction explicit.
nishmad: To be destroyed, perish.
נִשְׁמַד
The same root names the fate of those acted upon, holding agent and victim within one word family.
אָמַר
amar
GROWS FROM
אמר
Say, speak.
“had said” in this verse is amar. The Hebrew clause uses amar, literally “said,” where the KJV gives the contextual force as “commanded.” The root keeps the directive as spoken address, with the verse’s violent demand still in view.
ALSO GROWS
imrah: Utterance, saying, word.
אִמְרָה
This noun from the same root shows speech taking form as something heard and carried.
omer: Utterance, speech.
אֹמֶר
This branch keeps the command close to its root as spoken words.
THE PATTERN
What remains in a community’s midst can shape the way its members live.
But they interwove among the nations, and trained in their works.But if you will not drive out the settlers of the land from your face, then those you let remain of them shall be thorns in your eyes and goads in your sides, and they shall press you in the land where you settle.Do not wander; bad company rots good habits.THE THREAD
But they interwove among the nations, and trained in their works.The next line moves from the failure named here to mingling among the nations and learning their practices. Together, the verses show the consequence the passage attaches to what remains among the people.
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