What Does Psalm 35:6 Mean?
Let their way be dark and slippery, and let the messenger of the LORD pursue them.
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
Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the LORD persecute them.THE KEY
The judgment does not merely stop their way; it turns the way itself into darkness and treacherous footing as the LORD’s messenger pursues them.
THE MEANING
The prayer names a severe form of justice: their path is dark, their footing slick, and the LORD’s messenger pursues them. The danger is built into the road they travel, leaving them without clear sight or sure ground.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that those who make others flee can move on untouched: here, their own path becomes dangerous, and the LORD’s messenger pursues them.
THE ROOT
דַּרְכָּם
darkām
GROWS FROM
דרך
To tread or step; the noun names a trodden road or course.
English “way” can sound like a neutral route, but its Hebrew root carries the sense of ground made by treading. The verse pictures their practiced course itself becoming dark and treacherous.
ALSO GROWS
derekh: Way, road, journey, or manner.
דֶּרֶךְ
The noun in the verse makes their course of action into a path they travel.
dārak: To tread, march, or bend a bow.
דָּרַךְ
The verb behind “way” brings the image back to steps pressing into a path.
חֲלַקְלַקּוֹת
ḥălaqlaqqôt
GROWS FROM
חלק
Smooth or slippery; in related forms, to divide or allot a portion.
“slippery” in this verse is ḥălaqlaqqôt. The word describes a surface so smooth that it gives no grip. The same root also appears in words for a share or portion, linking this image of lost footing with the root’s language of what is allotted.
ALSO GROWS
ḥālāq: Smooth or slippery.
חָלָק
This branch names the quality that makes the road dangerous underfoot.
ḥēleq: A portion or share.
חֵלֶק
This related branch shows the root’s other sense: a portion allotted or received.
רֹדְפָם
rōḏəp̄ām
GROWS FROM
רדף
To pursue or chase after.
“pursue” in this verse is rōḏəp̄ām. The verb pictures the LORD’s messenger as pursuing them. The verse’s force is both the danger of their path and the chase that follows.
ALSO GROWS
rāḏap̄: To pursue or chase.
רָדַף
This is the verb behind the messenger’s action in the verse.
rōḏēp̄: A pursuer.
רֹדֵף
This form makes the pursuit concrete: the messenger is the one at their heels.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts a person’s way as consequential terrain: it can darken sight, destabilize footing, and carry the walker away from what is right.
The way of the restless is like darkness; they do not perceive what they stumble over.Surely in smooth places you set them; you make them fall into ruin.Leaving behind the straight way, they wander, following the way of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wage of the unaligned.THE THREAD
Surely in smooth places you set them; you make them fall into ruin.“Slippery” in both verses comes from חלק (ḥ-l-q), the root of smoothness and slick footing. Psalm 35:6 makes the way itself slippery; Psalm 73:18 shows that same unstable ground leading to a fall.
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