What Does Psalm 89:10 Mean?
You crush Rahab like one pierced; with your strong arm you scatter your enemies.
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
Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with thy strong arm.THE KEY
Rahab names the raging pride of chaos itself, and the verse shows it broken bodily and scattered by the strong arm.
THE MEANING
Rahab, the raging, proud force, is broken like a slain body, and the enemies are scattered by the LORD’s strong arm. The verse does not soften its violence: the force is crushed, not merely talked down. It speaks now to the experience of a power that swells until it seems to command the whole field.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a force becomes invincible by growing loud, vast, or numerous; even what seems to command the field can be broken and scattered.
THE ROOT
רַהַב
rahab
GROWS FROM
רהב
To rage, swell, or act arrogantly.
Rahab is not a neutral label: its root also carries the sense of proud, insolent force. The name gathers the verse’s image of chaos swelling into apparent invincibility.
ALSO GROWS
rahab: The raging chaos-monster named Rahab.
רַהַב
In Isaiah 51:9, Rahab is paired with the dragon, making the name an image of overwhelming force.
rehavim: The proud or arrogant ones.
רְהָבִים
The same root describes the proud in Psalm 40:4, revealing the self-exalting nature carried by Rahab’s name.
דִּכִּאתָ
dikkita
GROWS FROM
דכא
To crush or bring low; the root דכא (d-k-ʾ) means to crush.
“crush” in this verse is dikkita. The root that describes Rahab being crushed also describes the contrite person. Its force is bodily: the swollen power is brought low, while the person left low is named as crushed.
ALSO GROWS
dakka: Crushed, contrite; one brought low.
דַּכָּא
Isaiah 57:15 uses this form for the contrite person with whom God dwells to revive.
nidka’im: Crushed or contrite ones.
נִדְכָּאִים
Isaiah 57:15 uses this plural form for those whose hearts are crushed, keeping the root’s concrete sense visible.
THE PATTERN
The force that appears untamable is brought under command, and its tumult gives way.
Your right hand, O LORD, grew majestic in strength; your right hand, O LORD, shattered the enemy.Awake, awake, clothe yourself with strength, arm of the LORD. Awake as in the days of old, in the generations of the ages. Were you not the one who cut Rahab, who pierced the sea-dragon?And waking, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Be silent. Be muzzled. And the wind wore itself out, and a great calm came.THE THREAD
For thus says the high and lifted one, who dwells in the ages, whose nature is set apart. I dwell in the high and set-apart place, and with the crushed and the low of breath, to revive the breath of the low, and to revive the heart of the crushed ones.The word for broken in pieces here, דִּכִּאתָ (dikkita, you crushed), shares the root דכא (d-k-ʾ, to crush) with contrite in Isaiah 57:15. The same root marks Rahab brought low here and the crushed person met with reviving presence there.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us