What Does Psalm 80:13 Mean?
The boar out of the forest gnaws it, and the beast of the field grazes on it.
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
The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.THE KEY
The Hebrew says the field creature feeds on the vine, turning the language of nourishment into a picture of predation.
THE MEANING
Your life is pictured as a vineyard left exposed: what breaks in does not merely bruise it but feeds on it. The verse names the harm plainly, as the boar wastes the vine and the field creature consumes it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that exposure is harmless: once the boundary is broken, what is growing can become food for what enters.
THE ROOT
יִרְעֶנָּה
yir'ennah
GROWS FROM
רעה
to tend, feed, or graze
“grazes” in this verse is yir'ennah. The verb translated “devour” comes from רעה (ra’ah, to tend, feed, or graze), a root also used for shepherding and pasture. Here the field creature feeds on the vine: the same language of feeding that can sustain life becomes an image of its consumption.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: shepherd; one who tends a flock
רֹעֶה
This branch shows the root’s caring sense, which sharpens the violence when the creature feeds on the vine.
mir'eh: pasture; grazing place
מִרְעֶה
The pasture is where feeding belongs; here, the creature takes the vineyard itself as its grazing ground.
THE PATTERN
When living growth is exposed, what enters can treat it as food.
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.Come, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be eaten up. I will break through its wall, and it shall be trampled.THE THREAD
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I do not come up short.The Hebrew calls the LORD רֹעִי (ro’i, my shepherd), from רעה (ra’ah, to tend or feed), the same root used for the creature feeding on the vine here. One root holds care that sustains life and feeding that consumes it, sharpening the contrast in this verse.
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