Bible Strands
Psalms 68:21
Surely God will crush the heads of His enemies, the hairy crowns of those who persist in guilty ways.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist pronounces divine judgment immediately after affirming God as a rescuer from death and before promising to retrieve the faithful from Bashan and the sea.
The words — יִמְחַץ (yim.Chatz) means he will shatter, and קָדְקֹד שֵׂעָר (qadqod se'ar) literally translates to hairy scalp, describing the violent subjugation of persistent enemies.
The thread — God crushing heads or leaders appears as a parallel judgment motif in Habakkuk 3:13 and Psalms 110:6, while Psalms 7:12 shifts to the imagery of a sharpened sword and drawn bow.
Why it lands — The text states God will crush the heads of those who persist in guilty ways, demanding the reader acknowledge that deliverance requires the removal of obstinate opposition.
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
But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses.
Cross-references
- Habakkuk 3:13 You went forth for the salvation of Your people, to save Your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked and stripped him from head to toe. Selah
- Psalms 7:12 If one does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He has bent and strung His bow.
- Psalms 110:6 He will judge the nations, heaping up the dead; He will crush the leaders far and wide.
- Luke 13:5 No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
- Ezekiel 18:27 But if a wicked man turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life.
- Hebrews 12:25 See to it that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if the people did not escape when they refused Him who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we reject Him who warns us from heaven?
- Revelation 2:14 But I have a few things against you, because some of you hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to place a stumbling block before the Israelites so they would eat food sacrificed to idols and commit sexual immorality.
- Psalms 55:23 But You, O God, will bring them down to the Pit of destruction; men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days. But I will trust in You.
- Proverbs 1:24 Because you refused my call, and no one took my outstretched hand,
- Hebrews 2:1 We must pay closer attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.