What Does Psalm 5:6 Mean?
You cause to perish those who speak what fails. The LORD recoils from the man of blood and of deceit.
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
Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.THE KEY
The verse places speakers of falsehood beside bloodshed and deceit, refusing to let the lie look harmless.
THE MEANING
The LORD sees speakers of falsehood and the person marked by bloodshed and deceit, and rejects them. This judgment speaks now wherever deceitful words and violent dealings appear: they are exposed before the LORD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse dissolves is that deception can be separated from harm: it places speakers of falsehood beside the man of blood and deceit under the LORD’s judgment.
THE ROOT
כָּזָב
kāzāb
GROWS FROM
כזב
to be false, or to fail to hold true
“what fails” in this verse is kāzāb. The archaic word “leasing” means falsehood, and Hebrew ties it to the verb “to be false.” The verse places that false speech beside bloodshed and deceit, making the lie part of a pattern the LORD rejects.
ALSO GROWS
kāzab: to lie, be false
כָּזַב
The verb names the act from the same root as the falsehood spoken in this verse.
kōzēv: lying, false; a liar
כֹּזֵב
The root can name the speaker as well as the falsehood, linking deceptive speech to the person who speaks it.
מִרְמָה
mirmāh
GROWS FROM
רמה
to deceive or deal treacherously
“of deceit” in this verse is mirmāh. The verse describes a man of blood and deceit, joining violence with a way of dealing built on deception. The root holds both the act of deceiving and the deceit it produces.
ALSO GROWS
rāmāh: to deceive, deal treacherously
רָמָה
The verb shows deceit as an action, not only a trait attributed to the man.
remiyyāh: deceit, guile
רְמִיָּה
This related noun carries the same seed of deception as the verse’s מִרְמָה.
תְּאַבֵּד
təʾabbēd
GROWS FROM
אבד
to perish, be lost
“cause to perish” in this verse is təʾabbēd. The verb carries the root’s field of perishing and being lost; here the judgment brings the speakers of falsehood to ruin. The following clause names the LORD’s abhorrence, placing consequence and rejection together.
ALSO GROWS
ʾābad: to perish, be lost
אָבַד
This verb is the root form behind the verse’s word for “destroy.”
ʾăbēdāh: a lost thing, something lost
אֲבֵדָה
The same root can name what has been lost, opening the judgment’s language toward loss as well as ruin.
THE PATTERN
The LORD exposes falsehood and violence as destructive ways of being, while truthful speech is what pleases him.
Lying lips make the LORD recoil, but those who work in trust are his delight.The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off their memory from the earth.But the timid, the ones who will not trust, the foul, murderers, the sexually immoral, the potion-makers, the image-servers, and all liars, have their portion in the lake burning with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.THE THREAD
The one who works deceit shall not settle within my house; the one who speaks lies shall not stand firm before my eyes.Psalm 5 uses מִרְמָה (mirmāh), deceit, from the root רמה; Psalm 101 uses רְמִיָּה (remiyyāh), from that same root. Its second phrase also echoes the speakers of falsehood, showing deceit and lying as what cannot remain in the LORD’s presence.
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