What Does Psalm 69:12 Mean?
Those who sit in the gate murmur about me, and I am the song of the drunkards.
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
They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.THE KEY
The insult does not stop at being spoken: the speaker is made into music people can carry away.
THE MEANING
People gathered in public and people drinking turn the speaker into a refrain of mockery. The attack reaches beyond a spoken insult: a person becomes material others repeat as entertainment.
THE ROOT
נְגִינוֹת
nǝginot
GROWS FROM
נגן
To play an instrument or make music.
The speaker is not merely called ridiculous; he becomes something performed and repeated. The same word for “song” appears in Job’s description of becoming other people’s song, making the humiliation feel like a refrain.
ALSO GROWS
neginah: Instrumental music; a musical composition.
נְגִינָה
This branch makes the image concrete: the speaker becomes material for a piece others perform.
menaggen: A person who plays an instrument; a musician.
מְנַגֵּן
The root keeps the image active: someone makes the music, and the speaker’s humiliation is what they play.
יְשִׂיחוּ
yesîḥû
GROWS FROM
שׂיח
To muse, meditate, speak, or converse.
“murmur about” in this verse is yesîḥû. This root can name meditation as well as speech, joining words turned over inwardly with words spoken aloud. English can make the insult sound like a single outburst; the Hebrew root carries a wider field of musing and talk.
ALSO GROWS
sîaḥ: Musing, meditation, or discourse.
שִׂיחַ
This noun shows that the root’s speech can also be words a person turns over.
sîḥâ: Conversation or discourse.
שִׂיחָה
This branch brings out the social side of the verse: contempt moves through people’s talk.
THE PATTERN
Public contempt can turn a person’s suffering into words and refrains that others repeat.
All who see me mock me; they open their lips, they shake the head.And now I am their song, yea, I am their saying.Those passing by spoke evil against him, shaking their heads.THE THREAD
And now I am their song, yea, I am their saying.The word translated “song” in both verses comes from נגן (nagan), to make music. Job’s line opens this image further: the mocked person becomes not only a song but a byword, something people repeat.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us