What Does Psalm 94:3 Mean?

LORD, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked leap?

Psalm 94:3 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?

THE KEY

The repeated “how long” places the wicked’s exulting within a question addressed to the LORD, rather than making it the final word.

THE MEANING

You can name the length of injustice before the LORD while it is still happening. The verse holds the ache of waiting alongside the expectation that the wicked’s exulting does not define the whole story.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie this undoes is that wrongdoing’s visible success means it has lasting approval or the final word. The verse brings that apparent triumph into the LORD’s hearing.

THE ROOT

יַעֲלֹזוּ

ya'alzu

GROWS FROM

עלז

ʿ-l-z

To exult or rejoice.

“leap” in this verse is ya'alzu. This root describes an active outpouring of jubilation, so the verse names the wicked’s exulting, not only their apparent success. The same root describes the saints’ rejoicing elsewhere: the seed names the exulting, while the verse’s moral force comes from who is doing it.

ALSO GROWS

ya'alzu: They exult or rejoice.

יַעֲלֹזוּ

The same verb appears of the saints in Psalm 149:5, showing that this root names rejoicing without itself deciding whether its source is just.

allizah: Joyous, exultant.

עַלִּיזָה

This related form describes a city as joyous in Isaiah 23:7, extending the root’s sense of exulting from people to a shared public mood.

THE PATTERN

Scripture gives the cry over ongoing suffering a voice before God, making its apparent continuation answerable to divine hearing and judgment.

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

Psalm 13:1 · SDVThe repeated question gives the pain of waiting direct voice before the LORD.

O LORD, how long shall I cry out, and you will not hear and respond? I cry out to you of violence, and you will not deliver.

Habakkuk 1:2 · SDVThe cry names violence and apparent silence in the same breath, bringing both before God.

And they cry out with a great voice, saying, How long, Set-Apart and true Master, will you not judge and avenge our blood against those who settle upon the earth?

Revelation 6:10 · SDVThe question presses the continuation of injustice toward the expectation of judgment.

THE THREAD

Let the faithful ones leap in weight; let them ring out on their beds.

Psalm 149:5 · SDV

The Hebrew verb for “be joyful” in this verse comes from the same root, ⁨עלז⁩, as the wicked’s “triumph” in Psalm 94:3. The root names exulting itself; who is rejoicing and why give the sound its different meaning.

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