What Does Psalm 107:17 Mean?
Fools are bowed low from the way of their rebellion, and because of their crookedness.
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
Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “transgression” names rebellion, so affliction appears as the consequence of a breach already underway.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to a present pattern: when a path is shaped by rebellion, its consequences arrive as affliction. Crooked actions do not remain abstract; they shape the life being lived.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that rebellion leaves no trace: the verse ties affliction to the path and acts that precede it.
THE ROOT
פִּשְׁעָם
pishʿām
GROWS FROM
פשע
To rebel, revolt, or breach a bond.
The root carries the force of rebellion, so פִּשְׁעָם names more than a vague mistake. The word holds a breach already in motion alongside the affliction that follows.
ALSO GROWS
pāshaʿ: To rebel, transgress
פָּשַׁע
This verb names the act behind “their transgression”: a breach that helps explain why the verse links their path to affliction.
pōsheʿīm: Rebels, transgressors
פֹּשְׁעִים
The same root names people who rebel, showing how the Hebrew connects the act with the one whose path is shaped by it.
THE PATTERN
A path of rebellion can bind its walker in distress, while a cry to the LORD opens the way to deliverance.
His own crookednesses catch the wicked, and he is held by the cords of his falling short.Then they cry out to the LORD in their narrowness, and he brings them out of their narrow places.Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices falling short is a servant of falling short.THE THREAD
But he was pierced for our rebellion, and crushed for our crookedness. The straightening that made us whole was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.Isaiah uses the same root פשע in “our transgressions,” placing rebellion beside wounds, bruising, and healing. The root link opens a further dimension: the pattern of rebellion and affliction can also turn toward restoration.
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