What Does Psalm 119:85 Mean?
The proud dig pits for me, which are not according to your instruction.
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 proud have digged pits for me, which are not after thy law.THE KEY
The trap is deliberate digging that stands outside the instruction meant to direct the way.
THE MEANING
When others’ pride sets traps around you, this verse names their construction as outside the LORD’s instruction. A hidden scheme does not become a true path simply because someone has carefully made it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a confident, carefully made plan is therefore right dissolves here: these pits are measured against the LORD’s instruction, and they fail that measure.
THE ROOT
כָּרוּ
karu
GROWS FROM
כ־ר־ה
To dig or excavate.
“dig” in this verse is karu. The verb describes deliberate excavation: harm fashioned below the surface, not a passing injury. The verse places that constructed trap outside the LORD’s instruction, bringing hidden harm and misdirection together in one image.
ALSO GROWS
karah: To dig
כָּרָה
This is the verb behind “digged,” emphasizing an act of making the pit.
koreh: One who digs; a digger
כֹּרֶה
This form keeps the maker in view: the pit is someone’s constructed work.
זֵדִים
zedim
GROWS FROM
ז־ו־ד
To boil; to act presumptuously or insolently.
The word for the proud shares a root with boiling, as in נָזִיד (nazid), a boiled dish. That lexical link gives arrogance a heated undertone; here, it is the proud who turn that force into a scheme of hidden harm.
ALSO GROWS
zed: An arrogant or insolent person
זֵד
This singular form names the kind of person described in the verse.
zadon: Presumption or insolence
זָדוֹן
This related noun shows the root’s sense of arrogance as an overreaching posture.
nazid: A boiled dish or stew
נָזִיד
This branch preserves the root’s concrete boiling sense alongside its sense of presumption.
תּוֹרָתֶךָ
toratekha
GROWS FROM
י־ר־ה
To cast or direct; in a causative form, to instruct or teach.
“law” in this verse is toratekha. תּוֹרָה (torah) carries the sense of instruction that directs. Against that word, the pits are not merely unpleasant: their design runs outside the way the LORD points.
ALSO GROWS
yarah: To throw, shoot, or direct
יָרָה
The root’s sense of directing illuminates instruction as pointing a way.
moreh: A teacher or instructor
מוֹרֶה
This related form presents instruction as an act of directing another.
torah: Instruction
תּוֹרָה
This is the word in the verse: a directing word against which the pits are measured.
THE PATTERN
What is made in defiance of sound instruction can become a structure of danger.
He digs a pit and hollows it out, and falls into the pit he works.Whoever digs a pit falls into it; whoever rolls a stone, it turns back upon him.And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not respond will be likened to a foolish man who built his house on the sand.THE THREAD
He digs a pit and hollows it out, and falls into the pit he works.Both verses use כרה (karah, to dig): Psalm 119 has כָּרוּ (karu, they dug), and Psalm 7 has כָּרָה (karah, he dug). Psalm 7 makes the maker visible in the image: the pit is constructed by someone, and its danger returns to him.
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