What Does Psalm 55:11 Mean?
Ruin is in its midst, and deceit and guile do not move away from its wide ways.
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
Wickedness is in the midst thereof: deceit and guile depart not from her streets.THE KEY
The city’s corruption is not hidden at its edge: ruin sits inside it, and deceit stays on the streets everyone shares.
THE MEANING
Where people share life, deceit and harm can settle into ordinary routes and speech rather than remain isolated events. The verse names this condition as both inward and public: ruin sits at the center, and guile stays in the streets.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that deception is only a passing exception to communal life: here, it persists as part of the shared environment.
THE ROOT
מִרְמָה
mirmāh
GROWS FROM
ר־מ־ה
R-M-H
To deceive or act treacherously.
This root opens a cluster around deception and treachery: guile is a betrayal that bends what another person can trust. Here, that betrayal does not leave; it has become a fixture of shared civic life.
ALSO GROWS
rāmāh: To deceive or deal treacherously.
רָמָה
The verb shows guile as an act that damages trust, not merely a mistaken impression.
remiyyāh: Deceit or treachery.
רְמִיָּה
This related noun makes the betrayal itself a condition that can persist.
בְּקִרְבָּהּ
beqirbah
GROWS FROM
ק־ר־ב
Q-R-B
To approach or come near.
The word translated “midst” belongs to a root of nearness: the ruin is inside the city’s life, close at hand. The same root appears in words for what is brought near, giving this location a sense of proximity as well as position.
ALSO GROWS
qārōb: Near or close.
קָרוֹב
It brings out the closeness implied by ruin being in the city’s midst.
qorbān: That which is brought near; an offering.
קָרְבָּן
The shared root ties the city’s inner space to the idea of drawing near.
רְחֹבָהּ
rechovah
GROWS FROM
ר־ח־ב
R-Ḥ-B
To be broad or wide.
“wide ways” in this verse is rechovah. The word for streets is linked to breadth and open space. Against that openness, the verse says guile remains: the shared public way is wide, but deception has not moved out of it.
ALSO GROWS
rāḥav: To become broad or spacious.
רָחַב
This root supplies the sense of openness beneath the word for streets.
rechov: A broad public space or street.
רְחוֹב
It shows the street as shared space where a whole community passes.
THE PATTERN
When deception takes root in a community, it becomes part of the shared paths and speech of daily life.
They speak emptiness, each one with his neighbor; with smooth lips, with two hearts, they speak.You settle in the midst of deceit. Through deceit they refuse to perceive me, says the LORD.Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have worked deceit. The venom of asps lies under their lips.THE THREAD
You settle in the midst of deceit. Through deceit they refuse to perceive me, says the LORD.Jeremiah uses the same Hebrew noun מִרְמָה (mirmāh, deceit) and repeats the phrase “in the midst.” Together, the verses show deceit as an inhabited condition that fills both public life and the inner world.
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