What Does Psalm 116:11 Mean?
I say in my flight, every human is a spring that fails.
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
I said in my haste, All men are liars.THE KEY
The Hebrew calls the speaker’s “haste” alarm, revealing the sweeping verdict as speech formed in panic.
THE MEANING
The sentence speaks from inside alarm: when trust feels broken, every person can look unreliable at once. The speaker marks the accusation as something said in haste, letting you hear the sweeping judgment and the distress beneath it together. The verse preserves the force of the charge while showing the state from which it comes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse unsettles the belief that an absolute judgment formed in distress is automatically a complete and final reading of every person.
THE ROOT
בְּחָפְזִי
bechofzi
GROWS FROM
חפז
ḥ-p-z
To hurry or flee in alarm.
חָפַז carries alarm and urgent flight, so the speaker names distress as the condition around the verdict. The root makes “all humanity is false” audible as a sweeping judgment spoken under pressure.
ALSO GROWS
chippazon: Haste, urgent flight.
חִפָּזוֹן
Exodus 12:11 uses the same noun for “haste,” showing that this root carries urgency and pressure.
chaphaz: To hurry or flee in alarm.
חָפַז
Psalm 31:22 uses this root in the same phrase, “I said in my haste,” marking speech as emerging from alarm.
כֹּזֵב
kozev
GROWS FROM
כזב
k-z-b
To lie, prove false, fail, or disappoint.
“is a spring that fails” in this verse is kozev. כֹּזֵב names one who lies or proves false; the same root is used for waters that “fail not” in Isaiah 58:11. The accusation therefore carries the sense of failed reliability alongside deliberate deception.
ALSO GROWS
kazav: Falsehood, a lie, or deception.
כָּזָב
This noun makes the accusation concern what is untrue or deceptive.
kazav: To lie, fail, or disappoint.
כָּזַב
Isaiah 58:11 uses this root for waters that do not fail, bringing the sense of reliability into the verse’s charge.
THE PATTERN
A distressed verdict is spoken honestly while the text keeps it within a reality larger than the distress.
For in my panic I say, I am cut away from before your eyes; yet you hear and respond to the voice of my pleas when I cry out to you.We are pressed on every side, yet not cramped into a narrow place; we are without a way through, yet not without a way out.THE THREAD
For in my panic I say, I am cut away from before your eyes; yet you hear and respond to the voice of my pleas when I cry out to you.This verse repeats the Hebrew root חפז (ḥ-p-z), the alarm behind “I said in my haste.” Its speaker then says, “nevertheless thou heardest,” opening Psalm 116’s sweeping accusation as speech from distress rather than a detached verdict.
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