What Does Psalm 56:5 Mean?
All day they twist my words; all their plans are against me for harm.
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
Every day they wrest my words: all their thoughts are against me for evil.THE KEY
The root behind “wrest” also names pain, so the verse treats twisted speech as an injury in its own right.
THE MEANING
The verse names what happens when another person takes up your words and bends them against you. The thoughts behind that treatment are not neutral; they are aimed at harm.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that words are harmless because they leave no visible mark: the verse names their distortion as pain and links it to intent to harm.
THE ROOT
יעצבו
yeʿatsvu
GROWS FROM
עצב
To hurt or grieve; the verb here carries the sense of wrestling or twisting.
“twist” in this verse is yeʿatsvu. The root family holds together the bending of words and the experience of pain. What happens to the speech registers as an injury to the person.
ALSO GROWS
ʿetsev: Pain or grief
עֶצֶב
This branch makes the injury bound up with the wresting of words visible in the root family.
ʿitsavon: Pain or toil
עִצָּבוֹן
It echoes the cost carried by the speaker when words are turned against them.
מחשבתם
machshevotam
GROWS FROM
חשב
To think, devise, reckon, or plan.
“plans” in this verse is machshevotam. The word for thoughts grows from a root that also means to devise or reckon. The verse presents the hostility as formed intent, not a passing thought.
ALSO GROWS
machashavah: A thought or plan
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This noun shows how the root gives thought the shape of something conceived and directed.
ḥishshev: To calculate or consider
חִשֵּׁב
This branch brings out the deliberate quality of the thoughts aimed at harm.
דברי
devarai
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; as a noun, a word, matter, or thing.
The Hebrew word-family holds speech and matter together: words are not weightless sounds. Here, what is said becomes the matter others take up and turn against the speaker.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke
דִּבֵּר
This verb connects the speaker’s words to the act of speaking.
devarim: Words or matters
דְּבָרִים
The plural keeps the link between utterance and the matter being handled.
THE PATTERN
Hostile speech becomes an instrument of injury when words are bent toward a harmful design.
Who sharpen their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even the bitter word.There is one who blurts like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is healing.And the tongue is fire, a world of crookedness. It is set among our limbs, staining the whole body and setting the wheel of becoming ablaze, and it is lit by Gehenna.THE THREAD
Who sharpen their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even the bitter word.Both verses use the Hebrew word-family דבר (davar), which carries the sense of both “word” and “matter.” Psalm 64:3 makes the danger vivid: words are sharpened and shot like arrows.
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