What Does Psalm 94:5 Mean?
They crush your people, O LORD, and bring low your inheritance.
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 break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage.THE KEY
The same line that names the crushing names the crushed as the LORD’s own people and inheritance.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the person being ground down now: the harm is real, active, and done by others. Yet the people under attack remain named as the LORD’s own people and inheritance; the violence does not erase that belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being broken by others strips you of belonging: the verse calls the afflicted God’s people and inheritance even as they are crushed.
THE ROOT
יְדַכְּאוּ
yedakke’u
GROWS FROM
דכא
d-k-ʾ
to crush, break down, bring low
“crush” in this verse is yedakke’u. The verb for crushing shares its root with words for someone crushed or contrite: physical breaking and inward brokenness share the language of being ground down. Here the verb makes the violence active and collective: they are crushing a people the LORD calls his own.
ALSO GROWS
dakka: crushed, contrite
דַּכָּא
This branch shows the same root describing the condition of one who has been brought low.
medukka: crushed, bruised
מְדֻכָּא
This form appears in Isaiah’s language of being bruised, echoing the force of the crushing named here.
יְעַנּוּ
yeʿannû
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
to afflict, oppress, humble
“bring low” in this verse is yeʿannû. The grammar assigns the harm to “they”: this root describes affliction imposed on another, not a deficiency within the person afflicted. The verse keeps the source of the suffering visible.
ALSO GROWS
ʿinnui: affliction, humiliation
עִנּוּי
The noun names the suffering produced by the verb, keeping attention on what is done to the people.
ʿani: afflicted, poor
עָנִי
This word names the person brought low, the human result of the affliction described in the verse.
נַחֲלָתְךָ
naḥalatekha
GROWS FROM
נחל
n-ḥ-l
to inherit or hold as an allotted possession
“Heritage” names more than a valued past: it points to an allotted possession that belongs to the LORD. The violence is therefore directed against people still named as his own inheritance.
ALSO GROWS
naḥalah: inheritance, allotted possession
נַחֲלָה
This noun gives the sense carried by “thine heritage”: a belonging held as an inheritance.
hinḥîl: to cause to inherit, grant as an inheritance
הִנְחִיל
This verb shows the root can describe the giving of an inheritance as well as the inheritance itself.
THE PATTERN
The violence done to those God claims is counted as touching what belongs to God.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the bending low of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their drivers. For I know their pains.For thus says the LORD of hosts. After the weight, he has sent me to the nations that plundered you, for whoever touches you touches the pupil of his eye.And he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why do you pursue me?THE THREAD
But he was pierced for our rebellion, and crushed for our crookedness. The straightening that made us whole was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.Psalm 94 uses דכא (d-k-ʾ), meaning “to crush,” for the violence done to God’s people; Isaiah 53:5 uses the same root in “bruised.” The shared word makes the language of crushing visible in both verses, while each places that suffering in its own scene.
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