What Does Psalm 35:25 Mean?

Let them not say in their hearts, Aha, our living soul; let them not say, We have swallowed him.

Psalm 35:25 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Let them not say in their hearts, Ah, so would we have it: let them not say, We have swallowed him up.

THE KEY

The verse links “our desire” with “we have swallowed him”: the person they want becomes the thing that satisfies them.

THE MEANING

The verse catches the boast before it is spoken aloud: “We have swallowed him up.” When someone treats your diminishment as their satisfaction, the words name that violence plainly: their appetite imagines you consumed. Their claim of total victory is a boast, not proof that you are erased.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

Someone else’s desire to consume you does not make their claim of total victory true.

THE ROOT

בִּלַּעֲנוּהוּ

billa'anuhu

GROWS FROM

בלע

b-l-ʿ

To swallow, engulf, or consume whole.

“swallowed him” in this verse is billa'anuhu. The verb in the boast comes from ⁨בלע⁩, the seed for swallowing or engulfing whole. The image makes their imagined victory total: they speak as if no part of the person remains outside their power.

ALSO GROWS

bala: To swallow or devour.

בָּלַע

This active form names the very act their boast claims as complete.

nivla: To be swallowed or engulfed.

נִבְלַע

This passive form names the state of being taken wholly in, clarifying the totality their boast imagines.

נַפְשֵׁנוּ

nafshenu

GROWS FROM

נפש

n-p-sh

The living self: the person as a whole, with life and appetite.

“our living soul” in this verse is nafshenu. Here “our desire” is ⁨נַפְשֵׁנוּ⁩ (nafshenu, “our living self”): nefesh can refer to the whole person and can also carry the sense of appetite. Beside “swallowed him,” it makes their wish sound as though consuming another person is itself fulfillment.

ALSO GROWS

nefesh: Living soul; the whole living self, and by extension appetite or desire.

נֶפֶשׁ

This is the noun behind “our desire,” so the wish comes from their own living appetite.

nafshi: My living self or my life.

נַפְשִׁי

This possessive form keeps nefesh attached to a particular person; here “our” makes the desire collective.

THE PATTERN

Swallowing depicts a power attempting to erase another by taking it wholly into itself.

Then they would swallow us living, when their burning anger flares against us.

Psalm 124:3 · SDVThe same image describes a threat against an entire people, as if they could be consumed at once.

And the LORD appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Jonah 1:17 · SDVJonah’s engulfment makes the image physical: he disappears inside the fish.

But when this decaying thing has clothed itself in what does not decay, and this dying thing in what does not die, then the written word will come to pass, Death has been swallowed into victory.

1 Corinthians 15:54 · SDVThe image turns: death itself is consumed, showing that what swallows can also be swallowed.

THE THREAD

Then they would swallow us living, when their burning anger flares against us.

Psalm 124:3 · SDV

Both verses use the same Hebrew root, ⁨בלע⁩ (bala, “swallow”): here the enemies imagine consuming one person, and there they threaten to consume a whole people. The shared word reveals the same terror at two scales, the fear of being erased by another’s power.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us