What Does Psalm 22:16 Mean?
For dogs have circled me; an assembly of evildoers has surrounded me; they bore through my hands and my feet.
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 dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.THE KEY
Before the KJV’s final image of pierced hands and feet, Hebrew makes the danger close twice: one circle is laid over another.
THE MEANING
The threat is close enough to mark the reader’s body: a hostile crowd forms a ring, and the hands and feet are pierced. The verse does not turn violence into abstraction; it names how completely the vulnerable can be surrounded.
THE ROOT
סְבָבוּנִי
sevavuni
GROWS FROM
סבב
To turn around, circle, or surround.
“circled” in this verse is sevavuni. The line pairs סְבָבוּנִי (sevavuni, “they surrounded me”) with הִקִּיפוּנִי (hiqqifuni, “they encircled me”), two distinct verbs that make the enclosure feel layered rather than merely repeated. The danger closes around the speaker from more than one direction.
ALSO GROWS
saviv: Around; surrounding.
סָבִיב
The same spatial sense places the speaker inside a circle of threat.
sevivah: Surroundings; environment.
סְבִיבָה
What encircles a person can become the whole field they experience.
הִקִּיפוּנִי
hiqqifuni
GROWS FROM
נקף
To go around or encircle.
“surrounded” in this verse is hiqqifuni. This second verb gives the scene a perimeter: the hostile assembly does not simply approach but closes around the speaker. English pairs two near-synonyms, while Hebrew lets two roots build the same enclosing pressure.
ALSO GROWS
hiqqif: To encircle or surround.
הִקִּיף
This verb form names the enclosing action in the verse.
heqef: Circumference; perimeter.
הֶקֵּף
The related form makes the boundary of an enclosing space explicit.
ὤρυξαν
ōryxan
GROWS FROM
ὀρύσσω
To dig, excavate, or bore into.
“bore through” in this verse is ōryxan. The Greek wording behind the KJV’s “pierced” literally means “they dug,” making the wound an image of boring through hands and feet. The Masoretic Hebrew form at this spot is commonly read “like a lion,” preserving a consequential textual difference.
ALSO GROWS
orygma: An excavation or ditch.
ὄρυγμα
The digging word gives the bodily image the force of an opening made by excavation.
oryktos: Dug out; excavated.
ὀρυκτός
This related form carries the same sense of something being pierced or opened by digging.
THE PATTERN
Violence is felt as enclosure when hostile force closes around a vulnerable body or city.
All nations circle me; in the nature of the LORD I cut them off.For days will come upon you, when your enemies will drive stakes around you, and surround you, and press you in on every side.THE THREAD
You are my hiding place. You guard me from the narrow place, and you circle me with songs of escape. Selah.The same סבב (sabab, “surround”) root appears in “compass me about,” but here songs of deliverance form the circle. The root holds enclosure by danger and enclosure by refuge in the same word.
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