What Does Psalm 144:8 Mean?
Whose mouth speaks hollowness, and their right hand is a right hand of lies.
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
Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.THE KEY
The verse exposes a whole-person falsehood: the mouth speaks emptiness, and the right hand carries deceit.
THE MEANING
This verse names a pattern you can recognize now: speech has no truth in it, and the hand that could confirm it is deceitful too. What is said and what is done together reveal the falsehood.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that falsehood lives only in speech, while a person’s deeds or gestures can still certify their honesty.
THE ROOT
שָׁוְא
shav
GROWS FROM
שוא
Emptiness, worthlessness, or what is false and insubstantial.
“hollowness” in this verse is shav. “Vanity” here is שָׁוְא (shav), carrying the sense of emptiness as well as falsehood. The mouth’s words are exposed as lacking substance and truth at once.
ALSO GROWS
lashav: In vain; without effect.
לַשָּׁוְא
The same word appears in the sense of what comes to nothing, illuminating speech that cannot be relied on to carry truth.
ʿed shav: A false witness; a witness of falsehood.
עֵד שָׁוְא
This phrase shows שָׁוְא (shav) attached directly to speech that presents a lie as testimony.
שֶׁקֶר
sheqer
GROWS FROM
שקר
To lie, deceive, or deal falsely.
“lies” in this verse is sheqer. שֶׁקֶר (sheqer) places falsehood on the right hand, linking deception with what a person does or signals. The repeated “right hand” makes the exposure pointed: even the apparent sign of assurance is marked by deceit.
ALSO GROWS
shaqar: To deal falsely or deceive.
שָׁקַר
The verb form shows falsehood as conduct as well as a spoken claim.
sheqarim: Lies; falsehoods.
שְׁקָרִים
The plural form keeps the focus on deception as something expressed in multiple claims or acts.
THE PATTERN
Falsehood becomes visible when speech and conduct carry the same lie.
They speak emptiness, each one with his neighbor; with smooth lips, with two hearts, they speak.For your hands are soiled with blood, and your fingers with crookedness; your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue murmurs crookedness.You will know them by their fruits. Do people gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?THE THREAD
Remove far from me emptiness and the way of lying. Give me neither need nor plenty. Feed me the bread measured out for me.Proverbs 30:8 repeats שָׁוְא (shav, emptiness or falsehood), the word rendered “vanity” here, alongside lies. There, emptiness is named directly; here, it fills the mouth while deceit marks the hand.
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