What Does Psalm 21:11 Mean?
For they bend evil upon you; they plan a scheme, and they cannot stand.
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
For they intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform.THE KEY
A hostile plan can be aimed at you, fully formed in thought, and still never become an act.
THE MEANING
A hostile intention can be real and directed at you without becoming what happens. The verse holds the plan and its limit together: imagining harm does not make its arrival certain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that once harm is intended against you, its outcome is already settled.
THE ROOT
חָשְׁבוּ
ḥāšəvû
GROWS FROM
חשב
ḥ-sh-b
To think, reckon, or devise, to work out an idea or plan.
“plan” in this verse is ḥāšəvû. The verb carries the sense of mental calculation as well as thought. The same root appears in Genesis 50:20 for both what people “thought” and what God “meant,” showing that forming an intention does not by itself settle the outcome.
ALSO GROWS
maḥashavah: Thought, plan
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This related word makes the planning within “imagined” more visible: the verse speaks of an idea worked out in the mind.
ḥeshbon: Account, reckoning
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
Its sense of reckoning echoes the root’s calculating quality; a plot can be mentally counted out without being carried through.
מְזִמָּה
mezimmāh
GROWS FROM
זמם
z-m-m
To devise or plot; to form a plan with intent.
The word names a considered scheme, not simply a passing wish. The verse places that formed design beside the limit of what its makers can actually do.
ALSO GROWS
zāmam: To devise, plan, or plot
זָמַם
This verb is the action contained in the noun: the device is something they have actively devised.
mezimmōt: Plans, schemes
מְזִמּוֹת
This plural form appears in Proverbs 24:8, where devising evil is likewise described as a formed scheme.
נָטוּ
nāṭû
GROWS FROM
נטה
n-ṭ-h
To stretch out, extend, or incline.
“bend evil upon” in this verse is nāṭû. The word translated “intended” carries a physical image of stretching or turning outward. The evil is pictured as aimed toward the addressee, while the next clause distinguishes that reach from its arrival.
ALSO GROWS
nāṭāh: To stretch out, extend, or incline
נָטָה
This verb shows the root’s spatial force: the hostile intention is directed outward toward someone.
maṭṭeh: Staff, rod; also tribe
מַטֶּה
This related word names an extended object, making tangible the reaching quality carried by the root.
THE PATTERN
A plotted intention does not by itself guarantee its execution or final outcome.
As for you, you planned evil against me, but God planned it for good, to make it as it is this day, to keep a great people alive.He breaks the knots of the crafty, so their hands cannot carry them through.What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?THE THREAD
As for you, you planned evil against me, but God planned it for good, to make it as it is this day, to keep a great people alive.The same root חָשַׁב (ḥāshav, to think or plan) appears in both “ye thought” and “God meant.” The shared root reveals that an intention can be real without settling what finally comes to pass.
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