What Does Psalm 94:21 Mean?
They gather together against the living soul of an aligned one, and condemn the innocent blood.
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
They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for “condemn” shares its root with “wicked,” placing the verdict itself inside the vocabulary of guilt.
THE MEANING
A crowd gathers against the living soul of the aligned, and condemns blood the verse calls clean. The collective verdict does not erase the innocence the verse names; it exposes the violence of condemning the blameless.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This passage undoes the belief that a collective accusation proves guilt: it names the blood being condemned as clean.
THE ROOT
יַרְשִׁיעוּ
yarshiʿu
GROWS FROM
רשע
r-sh-ʿ
To be guilty or wicked; in this verb form, to declare guilty or condemn.
“condemn” in this verse is yarshiʿu. The verb for condemning shares its root with the words for wickedness and a wicked person. The verse’s verdict is therefore expressed in the same vocabulary as guilt, even as it falls on blood called clean.
ALSO GROWS
rashaʿ: A wicked or guilty person
רָשָׁע
This noun shares the condemning verb’s root, bringing the language of guilt into the act of accusation.
rishʿah: Wickedness
רִשְׁעָה
The shared root places condemnation and wickedness in the same word family.
צַדִּיק
tsaddiq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
Rightness, justice, alignment with what is right.
“of an aligned one” in this verse is tsaddiq. “Righteous” carries the sense of alignment with what is right, not only a private moral label. The verse depicts a gathered force directed against that aligned life.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Rightness, justice
צֶדֶק
This root noun shows the alignment contained in the word translated “righteous.”
tsedaqah: Righteousness, justice
צְדָקָה
The same root connects the person called righteous with the ordering of justice.
נָקִי
naqi
GROWS FROM
נקה
n-q-h
To be clean, clear, or free of liability.
The Hebrew word for “innocent” places the blood in the field of cleanness and freedom from guilt. Calling that blood clean makes its condemnation a direct contradiction of the condition the verse names.
ALSO GROWS
niqqayon: Cleanness, innocence
נִקָּיוֹן
This noun carries the same root’s language of being clear and without guilt.
naqah: To be clear or free of guilt
נָקָה
The verb shares the clean, guiltless sense that the verse assigns to the blood.
THE PATTERN
When judgment turns against the blameless, it names innocence as guilt and can become lethal.
He who aligns the wicked, and he who convicts the aligned one, both are loathed by the LORD.Who align the wicked for a bribe, and take the alignment of the aligned one from him!You have judged against the aligned one and struck him down, and he does not set himself against you.THE THREAD
The wicked peers at the aligned one and seeks to slay him.Psalm 37:32 repeats the root pair behind “wicked” and “righteous,” echoing the contrast in this verse. It makes the threat against the living soul explicit: the wicked seek the righteous person’s death.
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