What Does Psalm 14:6 Mean?
You shame the counsel of the bowed one, for the LORD is his shelter.
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
Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge.THE KEY
The one whose counsel is mocked is already sheltered by the LORD.
THE MEANING
You see the poor person’s counsel dismissed as shameful, yet the LORD is that person’s refuge. The one treated as having no standing is not left without shelter; human contempt does not define the limits of the LORD’s care.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Poverty does not make a person’s counsel worthless or leave that person beyond God’s protection.
THE ROOT
מַחְסֵהוּ
maḥasehu
GROWS FROM
חסה
ḥ-s-h
To seek shelter or take refuge.
The word for “his refuge” comes from the same root as the verb “to take refuge,” linking the shelter with the act of seeking it. Here the LORD is named as the poor person’s shelter, while others shame that person’s counsel.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsāh: To take refuge, seek protection.
חָסָה
The verb shares the seed of the noun “refuge,” connecting the person who seeks shelter with the shelter named in the verse.
maḥăseh: Shelter, refuge.
מַחֲסֶה
This noun from the same root names a place of protection; here the LORD is that shelter for the person whose counsel is shamed.
עָנִי
ʿānî
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
To afflict, humble, or bring low.
“bowed one” in this verse is ʿānî. The Hebrew word for “poor” is tied to being afflicted or brought low, naming more than a lack of money. Beside the refuge word, the verse holds the person’s vulnerability and shelter together: being brought low does not mean being abandoned.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānâ: To afflict or humble.
עָנָה
This verb shares the root and shows the condition of being brought low that the word for “poor” carries.
ʿŏnî: Affliction, misery, poverty.
עֳנִי
This noun from the same root names the hardship associated with the poor person in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Where human judgment diminishes the vulnerable, God remains their shelter and gives them standing.
I say to the LORD, my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him I lean my full weight.For you have been a stronghold to the drooping, a stronghold to the one who reaches in his narrow place, a shelter from the downpour, a shade from the dry heat, when the breath of the fierce ones is like a downpour against the wall.Hear, my beloved brothers. Did not God choose the emptied ones of this world, rich in trust, and heirs of the governance that he promised to those who love him?THE THREAD
I say to the LORD, my refuge and my fortress, my God, in him I lean my full weight.The word “refuge” in both verses comes from the same Hebrew root: in Psalm 14, the LORD is the poor person’s shelter; in Psalm 91, the speaker claims that same shelter as “my refuge.” The movement from “his” to “my” makes the shared root personal.
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