What Does Psalm 35:11 Mean?
Witnesses of violence rise; they ask me what I have not known.
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
False witnesses did rise up; they laid to my charge things that I knew not.THE KEY
The verse names the witnesses’ testimony as violence, then shows them pressing the speaker for answers about what he does not know.
THE MEANING
When accusation demands that you answer for what you do not know, the verse names violence in the demand itself. A witness’s certainty and your actual knowledge are not the same thing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a confident accusation becomes true simply because it is pressed as a charge.
THE ROOT
עֵדֵי חָמָס
ʿēdê ḥāmās
GROWS FROM
חמס
To act violently or wrongfully; violence, violent wrong.
“witnesses of violence” in this verse is ʿēdê ḥāmās. The Hebrew phrase joins “witnesses” with חָמָס (chamas, violence or wrong). Their testimony is named by the harm it does: the accusation itself is violence.
ALSO GROWS
chamas: To act violently or wrongfully.
חָמַס
This verbal form shows that violence is something these witnesses do through their testimony.
chamas: Violence or violent wrongdoing.
חָמָס
This noun names the harm carried by their witness, beneath the English phrase “false witnesses.”
יִשְׁאָלוּנִי
yishʾālûnî
GROWS FROM
שאל
To ask, request, or inquire.
The Hebrew verb means “they ask me.” The accusation takes the shape of an interrogation: they press the speaker for answers about what he does not know.
ALSO GROWS
shaʾal: To ask or request.
שָׁאַל
This is the verb behind the witnesses’ demand for an answer.
sheʾēlāh: A request or petition.
שְׁאֵלָה
This related noun keeps the root’s sense of something sought from another person.
לֹא יָדַעְתִּי
lōʾ yādaʿtî
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know or recognize.
“have not known” in this verse is lōʾ yādaʿtî. The speaker’s words draw a boundary around what he knows. The demand of the witnesses cannot turn what is unknown to him into knowledge he possesses.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know or recognize.
יָדַע
This is the verb in the speaker’s statement that he does not know the things being demanded of him.
dēʿāh: Knowledge or understanding.
דֵּעָה
This related form makes the contrast clear: a charge is not the same as knowledge.
THE PATTERN
False testimony turns speech into violence by making accusation sound like witnessed truth.
You shall not answer against your neighbor as a witness of falsehood.Do not give me into the throat of those who press me narrow; for false witnesses rise up against me, and breathe out violence.For many bore false testimony against him, but their testimonies did not match.THE THREAD
O God, you perceive my folly, and my debts are not hidden from you.Psalm 69 uses the same root, ידע (yada, to know or recognize), to say that the speaker’s truth is known to God. Together, the verses distinguish what witnesses demand from what is truly known.
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