What Does Psalm 119:110 Mean?
The wicked have set a snare for me, yet I do not wander from your precepts.
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
The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I erred not from thy precepts.THE KEY
The trap is hidden, but the speaker’s path remains held by the appointed instructions.
THE MEANING
A hidden threat can surround you without deciding the direction of your steps. The verse holds both realities at once: the snare is real, and you remain on the path of God’s instructions.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse dissolves is that being targeted or surrounded by danger means you have already been pulled off course.
THE ROOT
טָמְנוּ
tamnu from ṭāman
GROWS FROM
טמן
To hide, conceal, or bury.
“set” in this verse is tamnu from ṭāman. The Hebrew verb carries the concealment inside it: the snare is hidden before it catches. The same root appears in words for something hidden away, including a hidden treasure, so the root names concealment itself, not what is concealed.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmûn: Hidden, concealed.
טָמוּן
The trap’s danger lies in being out of sight before it is felt.
maṭmôn: A hidden treasure or hoard.
מַטְמוֹן
The root can describe something concealed that is valuable, showing that the seed is hiddenness itself.
תָעִיתִי
taʿiti
GROWS FROM
תעה
To wander, stray, or lose the way.
“wander” in this verse is taʿiti. This word points to movement away from a path, not only to making a mistake. The speaker says the hidden trap has not redirected that movement away from the instructions.
ALSO GROWS
taʿah: To wander or go astray.
תָּעָה
This is the verb’s basic movement: leaving the way.
toʿeh: One who wanders or is lost.
תֹּעֶה
The related form makes the path connection concrete: the verse says the speaker has not become a wanderer from the instructions.
פִּקּוּדֶיךָ
piqqudeykha
GROWS FROM
פקד
To attend to, appoint, muster, or oversee; by extension, a charge entrusted.
The root behind “precepts” carries the sense of something appointed and attended to, not merely a list of rules. The instructions mark a watched and entrusted path that the hidden trap has not displaced.
ALSO GROWS
paqad: To attend to, appoint, or muster.
פָּקַד
The root’s verb connects the instructions with attention and appointment.
pequddah: An appointment, charge, or oversight.
פְּקֻדָּה
This related noun shows how the root can name an entrusted charge, illuminating the force of the instructions in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A snare can be set against a person, yet the path need not end in captivity.
The lifted ones have hidden a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net beside the path; they have set traps for me. Selah.Our living soul slips free like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we slip free.And that they may come back to their senses out of the snare of the Slanderer, who have been caught alive by him into his will.THE THREAD
The lifted ones have hidden a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net beside the path; they have set traps for me. Selah.Both verses use טָמַן (ṭāman), “to hide or conceal,” for the snare being laid. That shared root makes the hiddenness explicit: danger is concealed around the path, yet the speaker remains with the instructions.
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