What Does Psalm 119:163 Mean?
I hate falsehood and abhor it; your instruction I love.
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 hate and abhor lying: but thy law do I love.THE KEY
Loving the LORD’s instruction and rejecting falsehood are one inward orientation, not two separate responses.
THE MEANING
Falsehood stands as something you hate and recoil from, while the LORD’s instruction is what you love. The verse presents both responses as one present orientation: your love has a shape, and falsehood falls outside it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you can love the LORD’s instruction while treating deceit as a harmless exception.
THE ROOT
שֶׁקֶר
sheqer
GROWS FROM
שקר
sh-q-r
Falsehood or deceit; the same root also forms the verb for acting falsely.
The verse’s noun names falsehood itself, while the same consonants form the act of deceiving and the person who lies. Its rejection reaches beyond one inaccurate statement to the pattern of deceit.
ALSO GROWS
shaqar: To lie or deal falsely
שָׁקַר
This verbal form shares all three root consonants, linking falsehood with the act of deceiving.
shoqer: One who lies
שֹׁקֵר
This participial form shares the root consonants and names a person acting falsely, extending the word family from falsehood to the one who practices it.
אֲהַבְתִּי
ahavti
GROWS FROM
אהב
ʾ-h-b
To love or be attached to.
The same three consonants shape the act of loving and the noun for love, so the verse describes a bond, not mere approval. That love gives the rejection of falsehood its shape.
ALSO GROWS
ahavah: Love
אַהֲבָה
This noun shares the root consonants and names the bond expressed by the speaker’s love.
ohev: One who loves
אֹהֵב
This participial form shares the root consonants and describes love as a continuing relation or stance.
THE PATTERN
Love for what is true makes falsehood incompatible with a life shaped by the LORD’s instruction.
From your appointments I discern; therefore I hate every way of falsehood.And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.Therefore, taking off lying, speak truth, each one with his neighbor, for we are limbs of one another.THE THREAD
Lying lips make the LORD recoil, but those who work in trust are his delight.The Hebrew word translated lying here is שֶׁקֶר (sheqer, falsehood), from the same root as the falsehood rejected in Psalm 119:163. The Psalm names your response to deceit; Proverbs connects that rejection with what delights the LORD.
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