What Does Psalm 6:10 Mean?
Let all my enemies be put to shame and shaken exceedingly; let them turn back and be put to shame in a blink.
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
Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed: let them return and be ashamed suddenly.THE KEY
The pivotal word is “return”: the force moving against the speaker is pictured as turned back, its direction reversed.
THE MEANING
The verse gives the reader a stark present-tense cry: let the forces set against me lose their footing, recoil, and be exposed in shame. Its urgency is in the suddenness, their direction changes in a moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that opposition pressing in is immovable or destined to win; the verse imagines its momentum turning back and its confidence breaking.
THE ROOT
יָשֻׁבוּ
yāshūvū
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
Turn back; return.
“turn back” in this verse is yāshūvū. The verse’s “return” carries the sense of a changed direction: the force that comes against the speaker is pictured going back. The root also forms words for turning away and turning back, so the verse’s reversal is built into the movement itself.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Turn back; return.
שׁוּב
This is the root verb behind יָשֻׁבוּ, naming the retreat at the center of the verse.
meshuvah: Turning away; backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
This word shares the root’s consonants and shows that turning can describe a departure from one’s course, echoing the verse’s image of direction changing.
teshuvah: Return; turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This familiar derivative preserves the root’s movement of return, making the verse’s sudden reversal audible in the word itself.
וְיִבָּהֲלוּ
veyibbāhalū
GROWS FROM
בָּהַל
Become alarmed, panic, or be thrown into confusion.
“shaken exceedingly” in this verse is veyibbāhalū. The verse describes the opponents as more than inwardly troubled: the root carries the force of sudden alarm. Its family connects that agitation with panic and being hurried or dismayed.
ALSO GROWS
bahalah: Panic; sudden terror.
בָּהָלָה
The shared root gives the verse’s “sore vexed” an additional shade of alarm breaking over the opponents.
nivhal: Alarmed; dismayed; hurried.
נִבְהָל
This derivative shows the root’s link between fear and unsettled movement, matching the verse’s picture of opponents losing their composure.
THE PATTERN
Hostile force can be reversed: the one advancing against the speaker loses ground and is driven back.
Let them be shamed and brought low, those who seek my living soul; let them turn back and be exposed, those who plan my harm.Look, all who burn against you shall be ashamed and confounded. They shall be as nothing, and those who strive with you shall lose the way.As soon as he said to them, I AM, they went backward and fell to the ground.THE THREAD
Then my enemies turn back on the day I call out. This I perceive, for God is for me.Psalm 56:9 uses the same Hebrew root שׁוּב (shuv, turn back) for the enemies’ retreat. Here that same reversal is paired with sudden shame, showing the change of direction and the collapse of confidence together.
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