What Does Psalm 22:7 Mean?
All who see me mock me; they open their lips, they shake the head.
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
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,THE KEY
The verse turns contempt into a public performance of sight, lips, shaking heads, and spoken words.
THE MEANING
When you are watched and ridiculed, this verse names the humiliation in its physical details: eyes fixed on you, lips shaped against you, heads shaking, words spoken aloud. It lets the contempt remain public and bodily, rather than reducing it to an inward feeling.
THE ROOT
יַלְעִגוּ לִי
yalʿîgû lî
GROWS FROM
ל־ע־ג
L-ʿ-G
To mock or deride
“mock me” in this verse is yalʿîgû lî. A form of this root also appears in Isaiah 28:11 in a phrase rendered “stammering lips,” linking mockery with speech heard as strange or broken. Here, contempt moves from seeing to the lips and spoken words, while the shaking head adds a physical gesture.
ALSO GROWS
lāʿag: To mock or deride
לָעַג
This is the verbal root behind the mockery directed at the speaker in this verse.
laʿag: Mockery or derision
לַעַג
The related noun shows how the action of mocking can become a condition surrounding the one being ridiculed.
laʿăgê śāfāh: Mocking or strange speech of the lips; rendered “stammering lips” in Isaiah 28:11
לַעֲגֵי שָׂפָה
This same root beside “lips” echoes the verse’s movement from ridicule to a mouth and words.
THE PATTERN
When people are made visible in suffering, contempt can turn their bodies and words into a public spectacle.
I also become a reproach to them; when they see me, they shake their heads.This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him. The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has looked down on you and laughed at you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.Those passing by spoke evil against him, shaking their heads.THE THREAD
For with stammering lips and another tongue he will speak to this people.Isaiah uses לַעֲגֵי שָׂפָה (laʿăgê śāfāh, mocking or strange speech of the lips), from the same root as “laugh me to scorn” here, though the KJV renders the forms differently. The shared root links ridicule with speech and the mouth that carries it.
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