What Does Psalm 31:6 Mean?
I hate those who keep watch over vapors of emptiness; but I lean my full weight on the LORD.
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
I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew makes “regard” an act of keeping: one can guard what is vaporous, while placing trust in the LORD.
THE MEANING
The verse holds together a fierce rejection of people who keep to falsehood and the speaker’s settled trust in the LORD. It confronts you with a present divide between what is guarded as true and where security is placed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that what you keep close can keep you safe dissolves here: deceptive vapor cannot provide security.
THE ROOT
הַשֹּׁמְרִים
hashomrim
GROWS FROM
שמר
sh-m-r
Keep, watch, or guard.
“keep watch over” in this verse is hashomrim. The verb adds the sense of keeping or guarding to regarding: this is attention that stays with the false thing. Set beside trust in the LORD, it reveals two different orientations of reliance.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Keeper, watcher, or guardian.
שֹׁמֵר
The same root makes the people in this verse sound like keepers of what they regard.
mishmeret: Guard duty, charge, or watch.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch carries the sense of sustained watchfulness, deepening the idea of continued attention.
בָּטָחְתִּי
batachti
GROWS FROM
בטח
b-ṭ-ḥ
Be secure, feel confident, or rely.
“lean my full weight on” in this verse is batachti. Trust here names a settled reliance, not merely agreement with an idea. The verse places that security in the LORD, in sharp contrast with keeping hold of what is deceptive and insubstantial.
ALSO GROWS
betach: Security or safety.
בֶּטַח
This related form makes clear that trust concerns where safety is sought.
mivtach: Refuge or security.
מִבְטָח
The branch names the place of confidence, illuminating the verse’s contrast between false objects of reliance and trust in the LORD.
הַבְלֵי־שָׁוְא
havlei-shav
GROWS FROM
הבל
h-b-l
Vapor; something fleeting or insubstantial.
“vapors of emptiness” in this verse is havlei-shav. הֶבֶל (hevel, vapor or vanity) gives the phrase its image of insubstantiality; שָׁוְא (shav, emptiness or falsehood) marks that vapor as deceptive. What is guarded here can appear worthy of attention while having no substance to secure anyone.
ALSO GROWS
hevel: Vapor, vanity, or something fleeting.
הֶבֶל
The image shows why the thing regarded cannot provide lasting security.
haval: To act emptily or be vain.
הָבַל
The related verb connects the fleeting image with the emptiness of what is held to.
THE PATTERN
What is kept as an object of trust reveals whether reliance rests on what is empty or on the LORD.
Those who keep watch over empty vapors let go of their own faithful love.Those who make them are like them, everyone who leans on them.Charge those who are rich in this age, that they not be lifted high in mind, nor set their hope on uncertain riches, but upon the living God, who holds out to us richly all things to feast on.THE THREAD
Those who keep watch over empty vapors let go of their own faithful love.Jonah repeats the phrase for those who keep or observe lying vanities, joining the same keeping-root to the same image of empty deception. The shared wording makes the Psalm’s “regard” sound like sustained allegiance, and Jonah names its cost: forsaking mercy.
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