What Does Psalm 78:36 Mean?
Yet they coaxed him with their mouth, and with their tongue ran dry toward him.
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
Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues.THE KEY
The word translated “flatter” also means “entice,” so the verse reveals praise functioning as a lure, with the tongue exposing its lie.
THE MEANING
This verse names a split that remains present: words can offer devotion while the tongue carries falsehood. Pleasing speech can invite trust without embodying the truth it seems to express.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Reverent-sounding words prove that the speaker is sincere.
THE ROOT
וַיְפַתּוּהוּ
wayfattuhu
GROWS FROM
פתה
Entice, persuade, or allure.
“coaxed” in this verse is wayfattuhu. The verb translated “flatter” belongs to a root that also means to entice or persuade. English can make the first clause sound like mere praise; the root reveals speech drawing someone in, while the next clause exposes its falsehood.
ALSO GROWS
peti: A simple or inexperienced person (Proverbs 1:4).
פֶּתִי
The word describes someone susceptible to persuasion, showing how this root connects enticement with being drawn in.
pittitani: “You enticed” or “you persuaded me”; translated “thou hast deceived me” in Jeremiah 20:7.
פִּתִּיתַנִי
This form makes the root’s drawing-in quality explicit and deepens the force of “flatter” in the verse.
יְכַזְּבוּ־לוֹ
yekazzevu-lo
GROWS FROM
כזב
Be false, lie, or fail.
“ran dry” in this verse is yekazzevu-lo. The same root names spoken falsehood and the failure of waters to flow as expected. Here, the tongue’s lie is speech that fails to hold what its sound of devotion promises.
ALSO GROWS
kazav: A lie or falsehood (Psalm 62:9).
כָּזָב
This noun names falsehood itself, the meaning the verse gives to the tongue’s speech.
yakhzevu: “Fail,” used of waters that do not fail (Isaiah 58:11).
יַכְזְבוּ
The root also describes something that does not hold up or continue, echoing the failure of these words to carry truth.
THE PATTERN
Speech that sounds intimate or peaceable can conceal a false intent.
They speak emptiness, each one with his neighbor; with smooth lips, with two hearts, they speak.Their tongue is a slaughtering arrow, and it speaks deceit. One speaks wholeness to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart he sets his ambush.For such ones do not serve our Lord Jesus, the anointed one, but their own belly, and by good words and fine speech they deceive the hearts of the harmless.THE THREAD
If a man lures a virgin who is not betrothed, and lies down with her, he shall surely give the bride-price for her to be his wife.The Hebrew verb translated “entice” here shares the root פתה (p-t-h) with “flatter” in the Psalm. The shared root reveals persuasion that draws someone in; the Psalm’s next clause names the lie within that drawing.
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