What Does Psalm 78:46 Mean?
He gave their yield to the grub, and their toil to the locust.
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
He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto the locust.THE KEY
The harvest is not absent; it is assigned to the consumer and the multiplier.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of judgment as a transfer: God gives a people’s yield to the finisher and their toil to the multiplying swarm. The work is real and the increase exists, yet neither effort nor abundance guarantees that its fruit remains with the people who produced it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that every act of divine giving secures the receiver’s good: here God gives their increase and labor over to devourers.
THE ROOT
אַרְבֶּה
ʾarbeh
GROWS FROM
רבה
r-b-h
To increase, multiply, become many.
The KJV’s “locust” can sound like one insect, but אַרְבֶּה (ʾarbeh, locust) is linked to רָבָה (rābâ, multiply). The verse sets the people’s increase opposite a swarm whose name echoes multiplication: yield is handed to an expanding force.
ALSO GROWS
rābâ: To increase, multiply, become many.
רָבָה
This verb makes the locust’s name echo an expanding multitude: the swarm is not just one eater but a multiplication of eaters.
hirbâ: To increase or make numerous.
הִרְבָּה
This causative form sharpens the verse’s reversal: abundance in the crop is met by abundance in its devourers.
חָסִיל
ḥāsîl
GROWS FROM
חסל
ḥ-s-l
To consume, finish, bring to an end.
“grub” in this verse is ḥāsîl. חָסִיל (ḥāsîl, caterpillar) is connected to a root meaning “consume” or “finish.” English gives the creature a neutral name, while the Hebrew carries the force of what brings the yield to its end.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsal: To consume, finish, bring to an end.
חָסַל
The verb supplies the sense of an eater that brings the harvest to its end.
ḥāsîl: A devouring locust or caterpillar.
חָסִיל
The creature’s name carries its consuming force, making the first recipient of the yield a finisher.
יְגִיעָם
yegiaʿam
GROWS FROM
יגע
y-g-ʿ
To toil and grow weary.
יְגִיעָם (yegiaʿam, their labor) names the result of exertion as well as the toil itself. The verse transfers not only what grows, but what comes from weary work.
ALSO GROWS
yāgaʿ: To toil, grow weary.
יָגַע
This verb shows the human effort contained in “their labour.”
yāgēaʿ: Weary, exhausted.
יָגֵעַ
This form exposes the cost behind the labor whose fruit is given to the locust.
THE PATTERN
Judgment can turn the yield of labor over to devourers, so production itself does not guarantee possession of what is produced.
You shall bring out much seed into the field, and gather but little in; for the locust shall devour it.What the shearer has left, the locust has eaten; and what the locust has left, the lapper has eaten; and what the lapper has left, the gnawer has eaten.And as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the winged ones came and devoured them up.THE THREAD
What the shearer has left, the locust has eaten; and what the locust has left, the lapper has eaten; and what the lapper has left, the gnawer has eaten.Joel uses the same words found here: אַרְבֶּה (ʾarbeh, locust) and חָסִיל (ḥāsîl, caterpillar). Psalm gives the yield and labor to these devourers; Joel shows their consumption continuing from one swarm to the next.
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