What Does Psalm 5:10 Mean?
Hold them to their debt, O God; let them fall from their own plans. In the abundance of their rebellions, thrust them out, for they have grown bitter against you.
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
Destroy thou them, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled against thee.THE KEY
The prayer asks God to make the rebels’ own counsel the instrument of their fall.
THE MEANING
This is a stark plea to God: destroy the rebels, let their own plans bring them down, and cast them out amid their many rebellions. The prayer names their rebellion against God as the cause of the judgment it seeks.
THE ROOT
הַאֲשִׁימֵם
ha'ashimem
GROWS FROM
אשם
ʾ-sh-m
To incur guilt or be liable for guilt; in this verb form, to hold guilty.
“hold to their debt” in this verse is ha'ashimem. Behind the KJV’s forceful “Destroy,” the Hebrew verb carries the language of guilt and liability. The plea frames judgment as a reckoning with culpability.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāshem: Guilty, liable.
אָשֵׁם
This branch makes explicit the liability beneath the plea for judgment.
ʾāshām: Guilt; a guilt or reparation offering.
אָשָׁם
The related term links guilt with an accounting for the wrong committed.
פִּשְׁעֵיהֶם
pishʿeihem
GROWS FROM
פשע
p-sh-ʿ
To rebel, break away.
The “multitude” here is a multitude of rebellions, not merely a tally of small errors. The verse closes with another word for rebellion, מָרוּ (maru, “they rebelled”), from the distinct root מרה (m-r-h), echoing the rupture with a different root.
ALSO GROWS
pāshaʿ: To rebel, break away.
פָּשַׁע
This verb names the act behind the many rebellions in the verse.
pōshēaʿ: One who rebels.
פֹּשֵׁעַ
This branch names the person whose rebellion the prayer addresses.
מֹעֲצוֹתֵיהֶם
moʿatsoteihem
GROWS FROM
יעץ
y-ʿ-ts
To advise, counsel, deliberate.
“their own plans” in this verse is moʿatsoteihem. The rebels’ plans are part of the judgment being asked for: the prayer says they fall by their own counsel. Their schemes become the path of their collapse.
ALSO GROWS
ʿētsāh: Counsel, advice, plan.
עֵצָה
This is the noun at the center of the verse’s image of falling by one’s own plans.
yōʿēts: Adviser, counselor.
יוֹעֵץ
This branch names the one who gives counsel, linking deliberation to the people acting on their plans.
THE PATTERN
A person’s own plans and actions can become the means by which their consequences return upon them.
His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.Therefore they eat from the fruit of their way, and they are filled with their own counsel.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
The LORD breaks the counsel of nations; he undoes the plans of peoples.Both verses use עֵצָה (ʿētsāh, counsel), from יעץ (y-ʿ-ts, to advise). Psalm 33:10 shows God bringing hostile counsel to nought; Psalm 5:10 asks that those who form it fall by it.
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