What Does Psalm 16:4 Mean?
Their pains multiply, those who hurry after another god. I do not pour out their drink offerings of blood, nor lift their names upon my lips.
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
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.THE KEY
The word for “sorrows” shares its consonants with a Hebrew word for “idols,” making the verse’s pain and its rival gods echo in the same sound.
THE MEANING
When trust hastens toward a rival god, grief multiplies. The speaker refuses both the blood libations and the act of carrying those gods’ names on the lips: what receives an offering and what receives a voice both reveal allegiance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that pursuing a rival god carries no cost; the verse names multiplied sorrow as its fruit.
THE ROOT
עַצְּבוֹתָם
ʿaṣṣəvōṯām
GROWS FROM
עצב
Pain, grief, and painful toil.
“pains” in this verse is ʿaṣṣəvōṯām. The grief word shares consonants with עֲצַבִּים (ʿaṣabbîm, “idols” or “images”) in Psalm 115:4, though whether the words share a historical root is uncertain. Their sound-link lets the verse’s multiplied pain ring beside the rival objects of worship.
ALSO GROWS
ʿiṣṣāḇōn: Painful toil or hardship.
עִצָּבוֹן
This branch shows grief as lived strain, not merely a passing feeling.
ʿāṣaḇ: To grieve or cause pain.
עָצַב
The verb gives the verse’s “sorrows” an active edge: this is pain that grows.
אַסִּיךְ
ʾassîḵ
GROWS FROM
נסך
To pour out, especially a libation; also to cast or pour metal.
“pour out” in this verse is ʾassîḵ. The Hebrew line uses this root for both “offer” and “drink offerings”: the speaker refuses the act of pouring blood as devotion to another god. The same root also appears in a word for a cast image, linking the poured offering and the fashioned object without making them the same act.
ALSO GROWS
nāsaḵ: To pour out or pour a libation.
נָסַךְ
The repeated root makes the refusal concrete: the speaker will not perform the pouring.
massēḵāh: A cast or molten image.
מַסֵּכָה
This branch brings the root’s pouring or casting action near the making of an object that receives worship.
מָהָרוּ
māhărū
GROWS FROM
מהר
To hurry or be quick.
The verse describes more than holding an idea about another god: people hurry after it. That urgency gives the pursuit a direction and pace, set beside the grief that multiplies.
ALSO GROWS
mahēr: Hurry; do quickly.
מַהֵר
This form keeps the force of speed in the verse’s description of pursuit.
məhērāh: Quickly or speedily.
מְהֵרָה
The adverbial branch shows how the root carries urgency across different forms.
THE PATTERN
When trust is given to a rival or made power, grief deepens and the worshipper begins to resemble what receives that trust.
Those who make them are like them, everyone who leans on them.For my people have done two evils; they have let go of me, the spring of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, shattered cisterns that cannot grip water.who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and bowed down and served the creation beside the one who created, who is praised for the ages. Amen.THE THREAD
Those who make them are like them, everyone who leans on them.Psalm 16:4 uses עַצְּבוֹתָם (ʿaṣṣəvōṯām, “their sorrows”), while Psalm 115:4 uses עֲצַבִּים (ʿaṣabbîm, “idols” or “images”); the words share the consonants ע־צ־ב (ʿ-ṣ-b), though their historical relationship is uncertain. Psalm 115:8 adds a mechanism: trust makes the worshipper like what is trusted, placing this verse’s multiplying grief beside the rival object’s incapacity.
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