What Does Psalm 109:17 Mean?
He loves cursing, and it comes to him; he delights not in blessing, and it is far from him.
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
As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him: as he delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.THE KEY
The curse he loves comes to him, while the blessing he refuses stays far away.
THE MEANING
This verse holds a severe petition before the reader: the man who loves cursing receives the curse he welcomes, while blessing remains distant from him. Its symmetry is stark, one comes near, the other stays away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that someone can delight in cursing another and remain untouched by it.
THE ROOT
קְלָלָה
qelalah
GROWS FROM
קלל
q-l-l
To be light or slight; in intensive usage, to curse or treat with contempt.
The English “cursing” can sound like a spoken act, but this root also carries the sense of making light of something or treating it as slight. Here the curse is not weightless speech: the prayer asks that it come upon the one who loves it.
ALSO GROWS
qalal: To be light or slight; in some forms, to treat as contemptible.
קָלַל
This shade reveals the contempt carried by cursing, which the verse describes as something the man loves.
qelalah: A curse or curse utterance.
קְלָלָה
This is the curse whose arrival the prayer asks to fall upon the one who welcomes it.
בְּרָכָה
berakhah
GROWS FROM
ברך
b-r-k
To bless; the related word for “knee” gives the root an image of bending.
The blessing he does not desire is berakhah, from barak, “to bless.” The related knee-image adds a posture beneath the word, so blessing is more than a pleasant phrase; it stands opposite the curse he welcomes.
ALSO GROWS
barakh: To bless or pronounce blessing.
בָּרַךְ
This is the action beneath the blessing that the verse says he does not desire.
berekh: Knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
The related word supplies the bending image associated with the root, giving blessing a posture as well as a spoken form.
THE PATTERN
What a person cherishes as harm can come back upon them, while refused blessing remains distant.
His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.As the bird in its wandering, as the swallow in its flight, so a curse that weighs nothing does not alight.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
As the bird in its wandering, as the swallow in its flight, so a curse that weighs nothing does not alight.Proverbs uses the same Hebrew word for “curse,” qelalah (קִלְלָה, qelalah), from the root קלל (q-l-l) heard in this psalm. It says a causeless curse does not arrive; Psalm 109:17 asks that the curse loved by this man come upon him.
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