What Does Psalm 79:12 Mean?
Return to our neighbors sevenfold into their lap the taunt with which they have taunted you, Lord.
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
And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.THE KEY
The prayer asks for reproach to return to the very bosom that sent it, multiplied sevenfold.
THE MEANING
This prayer gives the reader words for a moment when contempt is aimed at the LORD: it asks for that reproach to return to its speakers sevenfold. The image places the reproach in their own bosom, close enough that its source cannot be hidden.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that contempt aimed at God is weightless and vanishes without consequence: the prayer pictures it returning to its source.
THE ROOT
הָשֵׁב
hashēv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn, return, or turn back.
Beneath “render” is a return: הָשֵׁב (hashēv, cause to return) comes from שׁוּב (shuv, turn or return), so the verse pictures reproach coming back to those who sent it. The related מְשׁוּבָה (meshubah, backsliding) shows that this root can name a turn away; here the causative form asks for what went out to turn back toward its source.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Turn or return.
שׁוּב
The root itself names movement back toward a point of origin, clarifying the return at the heart of the prayer.
hēshîv: Bring back or restore.
הֵשִׁיב
This causative form describes making something return; הָשֵׁב in the verse carries that same force.
meshubah: Turning away, backsliding.
מְשׁוּבָה
This branch shows that the root also names a turn away; context gives the direction while the shared root keeps the movement visible.
THE PATTERN
What is sent or set in motion can return to the one who sent it.
His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.Whoever digs a pit falls into it; whoever rolls a stone, it turns back upon him.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
Whoever digs a pit falls into it; whoever rolls a stone, it turns back upon him.The Hebrew behind “render” is הָשֵׁב (hashēv, cause to return), from שׁוּב (shuv, turn or return); Proverbs uses תָּשׁוּב (tāshuv, it will return) from that same root. Both verses picture what is sent out coming back to its source, making the psalm’s request a focused form of the return Proverbs describes.
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