What Does Psalm 5:5 Mean?

The boasters do not stand before your eyes; you hate all the workers of crookedness.

Psalm 5:5 · 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

The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.

THE KEY

The word rendered “foolish” shares a root with boasting and praise, exposing self-exaltation as a stance that cannot remain in God’s sight.

THE MEANING

God’s gaze leaves no lasting place for self-exalting folly. The second clause speaks without softening: God hates those who make wrongdoing their work.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie that swagger secures a place before God is undone: the boastful cannot hold their stance in his sight.

THE ROOT

הוֹלְלִים

holelim

GROWS FROM

הלל

halal

To praise or boast; in related forms, to rave or act madly.

“boasters” in this verse is holelim. The Hebrew word reaches beyond lack of sense: its root also names praise and boasting, with related forms extending toward raving folly. That shared seed lets the verse expose self-exalting display as unstable before God’s gaze.

ALSO GROWS

hithalel: To boast or glory in oneself.

הִתְהַלֵּל

This branch makes the connection between foolishness and self-exalting display visible in the verse.

tehillah: Praise or a song of praise.

תְּהִלָּה

The shared root holds praise and boasting together, illuminating how self-display can take the form of misplaced praise.

יִתְיַצְּבוּ

yityatstsevu

GROWS FROM

יצב

yatsav

To take one’s stand or station oneself.

“stand” in this verse is yityatstsevu. The verb describes taking a position, not merely being upright. The same verb appears when rulers “set themselves” against the LORD in Psalm 2:2, making the stance before God a matter of chosen alignment.

ALSO GROWS

nitsav: Standing or stationed.

נִצָּב

This form emphasizes being set in a position, the very possibility the verse denies the boastful before God.

matstsav: A station or post.

מַצָּב

This branch carries the sense of a place where someone is positioned, sharpening the verse’s image of whether a stance can hold.

THE PATTERN

A self-exalting stance cannot endure before God.

Therefore the wicked do not stand in the judgment, nor those who miss the mark in the assembly of the aligned.

Psalm 1:5 · SDVAs in Psalm 5:5, the ungodly cannot hold their place when they come before God’s judgment.

Swelling goes before breaking, and a breath lifted high goes before a stumbling.

Proverbs 16:18 · SDVPride’s elevated posture ends in collapse rather than a lasting place.

But he gives greater favor. Therefore it says, God sets himself against those who lift themselves high, and gives favor to those made low.

James 4:6 · SDVThe proud meet God’s resistance, echoing the refusal of the boastful stance in Psalm 5:5.

THE THREAD

The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers sit down together against the LORD and against his anointed one, saying,

Psalm 2:2 · SDV

The Hebrew verb translated “stand” here is the same verb rendered “set themselves” in Psalm 2:2. There it names rulers taking their stand against the LORD; together, the verses show that a chosen posture cannot hold before God’s sight.

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