What Does Psalm 9:17 Mean?
The wicked return to Sheol, and all the nations who forget 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
The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.THE KEY
The judgment is framed as a return: forgetting God carries the nations back toward the realm of the dead.
THE MEANING
This verse names a present direction: people who forget God return toward שְׁאוֹל (Sheol, sheʾol: the realm of the dead). Its scope is severe, the nations are named together. The word rendered “turned” carries the sense of “return,” making forgetfulness part of the direction the verse describes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that forgetting God is harmless: here, a nation’s forgetfulness is bound to its return toward the realm of the dead.
THE ROOT
יָשׁוּבוּ
yāshūvū
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
to turn back, return
“return to” in this verse is yāshūvū. Under “turned” is a verb meaning “return.” The verse depicts the wicked moving back toward the realm of the dead; the same root can also describe turning toward the LORD, so the direction of return matters.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: return; turn back
שׁוּב
This root is the verb used in the verse and makes its movement explicit.
teshuvah: return; turning
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun from the same root keeps the idea of return visible beyond this verse.
hēshīv: bring back; restore
הֵשִׁיב
The causative form shows that the root can describe something being brought back, sharpening the verse’s focus on where the return leads.
שְׁכֵחֵי
shokhechei
GROWS FROM
שׁכח
shakhach
to forget
“forget” in this verse is shokhechei. The verse describes the nations as those forgetting God, presenting forgetfulness as a shared condition rather than an incidental lapse. Paired with “return,” it marks the direction of that condition.
ALSO GROWS
shakhach: to forget
שָׁכַח
This is the root verb behind the description of the nations.
nishkach: forgotten
נִשְׁכָּח
This related form shows the same root describing what has passed from remembrance.
shikhchah: forgetfulness
שִׁכְחָה
This noun makes forgetfulness itself visible as a condition named by the root.
THE PATTERN
Forgetting God marks a path toward ruin, while remembering him turns people back toward the LORD.
And it shall be, if you do at all let the LORD your God slip from you, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and bow down to them; I bear witness against you this day that you shall surely perish.Now discern this, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there is none to snatch you free.And just as they did not see fit to hold God in their knowing, God gave them over to a mind that failed the test, to do what does not fit.THE THREAD
All the ends of the earth remember and turn back to the LORD; all the families of the nations bow down before you.Psalm 9:17’s “shall be turned” comes from שׁוּב (shuv, return); Psalm 22:27 uses the same root in “turn unto the LORD.” The shared root reveals two directions for the nations: toward the realm of the dead through forgetting, or toward the LORD as they remember.
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