What Does Psalm 38:13 Mean?
But I, like a deaf man, do not hear, and I am like a mute who does not open his mouth.
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
But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth.THE KEY
The verse pictures a closed circuit: hostile words do not enter, and no answer goes back out.
THE MEANING
When accusation surrounds you, the speaker is pictured as neither taking its words in nor sending words back. The silence covers both ends of the exchange: the ear does not receive, and the mouth does not open. The hostile voice is present, but it does not become his reply.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that accusation leaves only two choices: absorb it or answer it. This verse holds open a third posture: silence.
THE ROOT
כְאִלֵּם
kəʾillēm
GROWS FROM
א־ל־ם
To be mute or silent; to have no speech.
“mute” in this verse is kəʾillēm. The root lets “dumb” carry more than an inability to speak: it names a condition of silence. Isaiah 53:7 uses the same root for the silent sheep and pairs it with an unopened mouth, binding muteness to a withheld reply.
ALSO GROWS
kəʾillēm: Like a mute person.
כְאִלֵּם
This is the word used in the verse, making silence the speaker’s image for not answering.
neʾĕlamah: Is silent.
נֶאֱלָמָה
Isaiah uses this form for the sheep before its shearers, joining the same root to silence under pressure.
אֶשְׁמָע
ʾeshmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׁ־מ־ע
To hear or listen, with attending and response at its edge.
“do not hear” in this verse is ʾeshmaʿ. “Heard not” can sound purely passive in English. The Hebrew root can carry attentive listening and response; set beside the mute person, the verse closes both the way words come in and the way an answer goes out.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This familiar form shows how hearing can extend toward a response, which the speaker here does not give.
shemuʿah: A report or tidings.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch names words received as a report, sharpening the contrast with the speaker who does not take them in.
THE PATTERN
In the face of provocation, silence can interrupt the cycle of returned harm.
Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep guard over the door of my lips.Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is counted wise; and the one who shuts his lips is one of understanding.Who, when he was insulted, hurled no insult back; when he suffered, he threatened not; but handed himself over to the one who judges by alignment.THE THREAD
He was pressed, and he was bowed low, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter, and like a ewe before her shearers he was mute, so he did not open his mouth.Psalm’s כְאִלֵּם (kəʾillēm, “like a mute person”) and Isaiah’s נֶאֱלָמָה (neʾĕlamah, “is silent”) share א־ל־ם (ʾ-l-m, “to be mute or silent”). Isaiah’s unopened mouth makes explicit what this verse compresses: the silence includes the answer that does not come.
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