What Does Psalm 83:5 Mean?
For they set one heart together against you, and they cut a covenant.
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 have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:THE KEY
The Hebrew reveals a progression from shared counsel to one heart to a covenant they cut against you.
THE MEANING
The verse names coordinated opposition: people consult, align their hearts, and cut a pact against you. The threat is organized and intentional, not a passing disagreement.
THE ROOT
בְּרִית יִכְרֹתוּ
berit yikhrotu
GROWS FROM
כרת
karat
to cut; to cut off
The Hebrew phrase says they cut a covenant, giving the confederacy the force of a binding agreement. This root also carries the sense of being cut off, so binding and severance share the language of cutting.
ALSO GROWS
karat: to cut; to cut off
כָּרַת
This is the verb behind the pact they make against you.
nikhrat: to be cut off
נִכְרַת
The same root can name severance, showing another side of the cutting image.
נוֹעֲצוּ
no'atsu
GROWS FROM
יעץ
ya'ats
to advise, counsel, or deliberate
“consulted together” in this verse is no'atsu. The verse begins with counsel before it names the covenant: the opposition takes shape through deliberate planning before it is bound by agreement. The shared counsel is part of the threat’s mechanism.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēṣāh: counsel, advice, or plan
עֵצָה
The noun names the counsel that the verb in this verse describes people forming together.
yōʿēṣ: counselor or adviser
יוֹעֵץ
This branch names one who gives counsel, linking the shared plan to the people shaping it.
THE PATTERN
Opposition gathers force when people join their counsel and coordinate their intent.
The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers sit down together against the LORD and against his anointed one, saying,And consulted that they might seize Jesus by deceit, and kill him.For in truth, in this city, against your set-apart servant Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate were gathered together with the nations and the peoples of Israel,THE THREAD
Many plans are in the heart of a man, but the counsel of the LORD, it will stand.The counsel word here belongs to the same root family as “consulted” in Psalm 83:5. Set beside the many plans in the human heart, the verse distinguishes a united plan from the counsel that stands.
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