What Does Psalm 81:9 Mean?
There shall be no stranger god in you, and you shall not bow down to a foreign god.
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
There shall no strange god be in thee; neither shalt thou worship any strange god.THE KEY
The verse bars the foreign from both the inner life and the body’s bow, showing that belonging and allegiance are one.
THE MEANING
No alien god occupies a place within you, and no alien god receives your bow. The verse holds inward belonging and outward posture together as one allegiance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that inner allegiance and outward devotion can be kept in separate compartments: the same foreign power is named both as what has no place within you and as what receives no bow.
THE ROOT
תִּשְׁתַּחֲוֶה
tishtachaveh
GROWS FROM
שחה
to bow down or prostrate oneself
“bow down” in this verse is tishtachaveh. The Hebrew verb names a bodily bow, not only an inward feeling of reverence. Beside “in thee,” it joins what occupies the inner life to the posture that expresses allegiance.
ALSO GROWS
shachah: to bow down, prostrate oneself
שָׁחָה
This basic verb makes the verse’s language of devotion physically concrete.
hishtachavah: to bow oneself down, prostrate
הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה
This related form names the act of bowing that the verse places beside inward belonging.
זָר
zar
GROWS FROM
זור
to be a stranger or foreign; to stand outside what belongs
“stranger god” in this verse is zar. English “strange” can sound merely unfamiliar, while this word marks an outsider. In the inner clause, the question is what is given a place within you.
ALSO GROWS
zar: stranger, outsider, foreign
זָר
It names the foreign character of the god barred from within.
zur: to be foreign, to act as a stranger
זוּר
The verb form keeps the root’s sense of being outside or alien.
נֵכָר
nekar
GROWS FROM
נכר
foreignness, an alien character; what belongs to another people or sphere
“foreign god” in this verse is nekar. The second English “strange” translates a different Hebrew word from the first. Together, the two terms make foreignness emphatic: the deity is marked as alien, and the bow is withheld from it.
ALSO GROWS
nokhri: foreigner, stranger
נָכְרִי
This related form applies the root’s sense of foreignness to a person.
nokhriyyah: foreign woman, stranger
נָכְרִיָּה
This related form also names someone as belonging to what is foreign.
THE PATTERN
What receives inward place and outward service expresses the same allegiance.
You shall not walk after other gods, of the gods of the peoples surrounding you.No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will hold fast to one and look down on the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.So, my beloved, flee from the service of images.THE THREAD
For you shall not bow down to another god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.Exodus 34:14 uses תִּשְׁתַּחֲוֶה (tishtachaveh, “you bow down”), the same verb as Psalm 81:9. The shared root makes the bodily bow the visible expression of the allegiance that the verse says has no place within you.
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