Bible Strands
Psalms 55:9
O Lord, confuse and confound their speech, for I see violence and strife in the city.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses the Lord directly, pleading for divine action amid a city consumed by violence and internal strife, immediately following a desire to escape a raging tempest.
The words — The prayer hinges on בַּלַּ֣ע (ba.La'), literally "confuse," and פַּלַּ֣ג (pa.Lag), literally "divide," applied to the enemy's tongue (לְשׁוֹנָם).
The thread — The command to scatter human speech parallels Genesis 11:7, while the documented urban violence matches the pattern in Jeremiah 6:7 and the political betrayal noted in 2 Samuel 15:31.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to acknowledge that organized human conflict demands divine disruption to stop, and it forces a clear-eyed recognition of widespread strife rather than passive observation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues: for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 6:7 As a well gushes its water, so she pours out her evil. Violence and destruction resound in her; sickness and wounds are ever before Me.
- Genesis 11:7 Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”
- 2 Samuel 15:31 Now someone told David: “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” So David pleaded, “O LORD, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness!”
- Acts 23:6 Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. It is because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.”
- 2 Samuel 17:1 Furthermore, Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me choose twelve thousand men and set out tonight in pursuit of David.
- Jeremiah 23:14 And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns his back on wickedness. They are all like Sodom to Me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah.”
- Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!
- John 7:45 Then the officers returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring Him in?”