What Does Psalm 78:58 Mean?
They vexed him with their heights, and stirred him to jealousy with their carved images.
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
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images.THE KEY
A carved image becomes a rival center of devotion, and the verse names the resulting rupture as both anger and jealousy.
THE MEANING
This verse names a live fracture: when devotion is fixed on elevated shrines and carved forms, the relationship is stirred toward anger and jealousy. The paired responses make worship relational rather than neutral; the image is not mere decoration. The verse speaks of divided allegiance as something that matters now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that God is indifferent to rival devotion is undone here: the verse presents carved images as a rupture that awakens jealousy.
THE ROOT
וַיַּקְנִיאוּהוּ
wayaqniʾuhu
GROWS FROM
קנא
To be jealous or zealous; to burn with intense concern for what is claimed as one’s own.
“stirred him to jealousy” in this verse is wayaqniʾuhu. The root holds jealousy and zeal together, so the response is more than envy: it is fierce concern over divided devotion. The verse links that intensity to the graven images around which allegiance gathers.
ALSO GROWS
qinʾah: Jealousy or zeal
קִנְאָה
It names the intense response stirred by the images in this verse.
qannāʾ: Jealous or zealous
קַנָּא
This related form makes the root’s shared sense of fervor audible.
וַיַּכְעִיסוּהוּ
wayyakʿisuhu
GROWS FROM
כעס
To be vexed or angered; to cause anger or grief.
“vexed him” in this verse is wayyakʿisuhu. The verb here describes an action that brings anger, while the same root can name anger or vexation itself. Paired with jealousy, it shows the verse presenting the images as a relational injury, not a neutral choice.
ALSO GROWS
kaʿas: Anger, vexation, or grief
כַּעַס
The noun names the response caused by the action in this verse.
hikʿis: To provoke or anger
הִכְעִיס
This causative form shares the verse’s sense of bringing someone to anger.
פְּסִילֵיהֶם
pesilehem
GROWS FROM
פסל
To carve or hew.
“carved images” in this verse is pesilehem. The Hebrew names these images by the act that forms them: they are carved things. That root makes their made and shaped character part of the verse’s meaning, as these objects become centers of devotion.
ALSO GROWS
pesel: A carved or graven image
פֶּסֶל
This is the singular noun related to the plural images named in the verse.
pasal: To carve or hew
פָּסַל
The verb reveals the making embedded in the word for the images.
THE PATTERN
Rival objects of devotion are treated as a relational rupture that stirs divine jealousy, not as neutral preference.
Thus they vexed him with their deeds, and the striking burst out upon them.And Judah did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and they provoked him to jealousy with their shortcomings in which they had missed the mark, above all that their fathers had done.Or do we stir the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?THE THREAD
They set him burning with the gods of strangers; with what makes the body recoil, they provoked him.This verse uses the same roots for jealousy (קנא) and anger (כעס), pairing the responses just as Psalm 78:58 does. The shared wording opens the two emotions as a single response to rival devotion.
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