What Does Psalm 82:7 Mean?
But like humankind you die; like one of the princes you fall.
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
But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.THE KEY
Even those called “gods” meet death as אָדָם, the shared, ground-linked human condition.
THE MEANING
Your status may set you among rulers, but it does not remove you from the human condition: you die as a human and fall as princes fall. The verse places an elevated title beside the same mortal ending, showing that rank cannot overrule what you are.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that high status can place you beyond ordinary human mortality.
THE ROOT
כְּאָדָם
ke'adam
GROWS FROM
אדם
adam
The human, linked in Hebrew word and sound to the ground, אֲדָמָה.
“humankind” in this verse is ke'adam. The Hebrew phrase is singular: “like אָדָם,” where English gives the plural “men.” Its shared consonants with אֲדָמָה (ground) connect even exalted figures to the common, ground-formed human condition.
ALSO GROWS
adamah: Ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
This branch links the human word to the ground, making the verse’s comparison carry an earthbound human nature.
adom: Red
אָדֹם
The shared consonants preserve the traditional red-soil association in the same word family.
תִּפֹּלוּ
tipolu
GROWS FROM
נפל
naphal
To fall, drop, or collapse.
The verse uses this root for the fate of princes: their elevation does not keep them from descent. Its word family gives “fall” the force of actual collapse, not merely a change in status.
ALSO GROWS
nefilah: A fall, falling
נְפִלָה
This noun makes the descent named in the verse a concrete event.
mappalah: Downfall, defeat
מַפָּלָה
This branch carries the root’s movement from a standing position into collapse.
תְּמוּתוּ
temutu
GROWS FROM
מות
mut
To die.
“die” in this verse is temutu. The root’s word family includes both dying and death as a named condition. Beside אָדָם, it makes mortality part of the shared human condition rather than an exception that rank can escape.
ALSO GROWS
mavet: Death
מָוֶת
The noun names the endpoint that the verse states as an unavoidable human fate.
met: Dead, a dead person
מֵת
This branch names the state reached by the verb “die.”
THE PATTERN
No human rank removes its bearer from the shared limit of mortality.
All flesh expires together, and mortal man turns back to dust.For what meets the children of humankind also meets the beast, and one encounter is theirs. As this one dies, so that one dies, and they all have one breath. Humankind has no remainder above the beast, for all is vapor.And as it is laid up for people to die once, and after this, judgment.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.Genesis places אָדָם (human) beside אֲדָמָה (ground), making their shared consonants visible in the forming of the human being. Psalm 82:7 echoes אָדָם in “like men,” bringing even those called gods back to the common human nature.
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