Bible Strands
Psalms 59:12
By the sins of their mouths and the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride, in the curses and lies they utter.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist petitions God to judge his adversaries through their own speech rather than immediate execution, following a request in verse 11 to scatter them and preceding a plea in verse 13 to consume them in wrath.
The words — The Hebrew yillakdū (let them be caught) describes a trapping action, while gəʾônām (their pride) identifies the specific condition that enables that trap.
The thread — This pattern of self-entrapment through speech runs through Proverbs 12:13, where the wicked are caught by rebellious words, and Proverbs 18:7, which states that a fool’s mouth becomes a snare to his soul.
Why it lands — The text records that judgment arrives through the very curses and lies the speaker condemns, requiring the reader to acknowledge how speech directly produces the consequences it seeks to avoid.
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
For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips let them even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying which they speak.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 12:13 An evil man is trapped by his rebellious speech, but a righteous man escapes from trouble.
- Psalms 10:7 His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and violence; trouble and malice are under his tongue.
- Proverbs 18:7 A fool’s mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to his soul.
- Hosea 4:2 Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.
- Matthew 12:36 But I tell you that men will give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.
- Psalms 10:2 In pride the wicked pursue the needy; let them be caught in the schemes they devise.
- Psalms 120:3 What will He do to you, and what will be added to you, O deceitful tongue?
- Psalms 64:7 But God will shoot them with arrows; suddenly they will be wounded.
- Psalms 79:12 Pay back into the laps of our neighbors sevenfold the reproach they hurled at You, O Lord.
- Psalms 109:17 The cursing that he loved, may it fall on him; the blessing in which he refused to delight, may it be far from him.