What Does Psalm 115:5 Mean?
They have mouths, but they do not speak; they have eyes, but they do not see.
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 have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:THE KEY
The verse separates the appearance of life from its actual capacity: eyes can be present without seeing.
THE MEANING
A made image can carry a mouth and eyes without carrying speech or sight. The verse exposes the gap between possessing the visible form of life and bearing its living capacity.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that something is alive or perceptive just because it has the outward shape of life.
THE ROOT
יִרְאוּ
yirʾû
GROWS FROM
ראה
r-ʾ-h
To see, look, or perceive.
“see” in this verse is yirʾû. The Hebrew seeing-root also gives מַרְאֶה (marʾeh), meaning appearance or sight. The verse sets appearance beside actual seeing: an image can look as if it has eyes without perceiving.
ALSO GROWS
marʾeh: What is seen; an appearance or vision.
מַרְאֶה
It shares the seeing-root and brings the verse’s central gap into view: appearance does not guarantee perception.
roʾeh: A person who sees or perceives.
רֹאֶה
This names the active capacity missing from the image: having eyes is not the same as being a seer.
יְדַבֵּרוּ
yedabberû
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak or utter.
“speak” in this verse is yedabberû. The root also forms דָּבָר (davar), meaning word, matter, or thing. The verse’s lifeless image has the shape of a mouth, but produces no utterance.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word or spoken matter; also a thing or matter.
דָּבָר
This word links speech with what is conveyed or named, sharpening the contrast between a formed object and a living voice.
medabber: The active form of speaking; a speaker.
מְדַבֵּר
It points to speech as an act, which the image’s mouth cannot perform.
THE PATTERN
Outward signs of a living capacity cannot supply the life that makes the capacity work.
They have not perceived nor discerned, for he has plastered over their eyes from seeing, and their heart from understanding.Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?Woe to the one who says to wood, Awake, and to the silent stone, Stir yourself, it will instruct! Behold, it is plated with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in its inward parts.THE THREAD
They have not perceived nor discerned, for he has plastered over their eyes from seeing, and their heart from understanding.The same Hebrew root ראה (raʾah, see or perceive) appears in both verses. Psalm 115 describes an image that cannot see; Isaiah shows that devotion to the image can also close the maker’s own sight.
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