What Does Psalm 40:15 Mean?
Let them be stunned on the heels of their shame, those who say to me, Aha, aha.
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 them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.THE KEY
The root behind “desolate” also means “appalled,” so the verse turns the gloaters’ cry back on them: they are pictured stunned by the ruin they invite.
THE MEANING
When others delight in your humiliation, the verse gives their “Aha” a consequence: it asks for desolation to follow the mouths that gloat. The wish for their ruin stands openly in the verse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that mockery is only speech and leaves no consequence is undone: the verse gives the taunt a desolate aftermath.
THE ROOT
יֵשֹׁמּוּ
yeshommu
GROWS FROM
שׁמם
שׁמם (sh-m-m) means to become desolate, devastated, or appalled.
The root holds ruin and stunned shock together: to become desolate can also be to be appalled. That gives the verse’s wish a sharp reversal, the mouths that cry “Aha” are pictured left stunned themselves.
ALSO GROWS
shemamah: Desolation or devastation.
שְׁמָמָה
This noun carries the same שׁמם (sh-m-m) root and names the condition the verse wishes upon the taunting mouths.
shamem: Desolate or appalled.
שָׁמֵם
This form from the same root shows that desolation can carry the shock of being struck speechless.
עֵקֶב
ʿaqev
GROWS FROM
עקב
עקב (ʿ-q-b) means heel; it also carries the sense of what follows behind as a consequence.
“on the heels of their shame” in this verse is ʿaqev. The word rendered “reward” can mean “heel” or “consequence.” The verse pictures the taunt’s aftermath as something that follows at its heel.
ALSO GROWS
ʿaqev: Heel.
עָקֵב
The literal heel is the part that trails behind, giving the verse’s idea of consequence a concrete image.
ʿaqav: To follow at the heel or supplant.
עָקַב
This verb shares the עקב (ʿ-q-b) root and connects what follows behind with the consequence that trails the gloat.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats gloating over another’s collapse as consequential speech that can return upon the gloaters.
They open their mouth wide against me; they say, Aha, aha, our eye has seen it.Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart leap when he stumbles.And do not gaze upon the day of your brother, the day he became a foreigner. Do not rejoice over the children of Judah on the day they lost their way. Do not make your mouth large in the day of the narrow place.THE THREAD
As many were stunned at you, so his look was ruined beyond any man, and his shape beyond the sons of men.The root שׁמם (sh-m-m, “be desolate or appalled”) appears in Isaiah’s word “astonied.” Here that root names the desolation sought for the gloaters; Isaiah uses it for those left appalled, holding devastation and shock together.
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