Psalms 94:5
in Psalms 94They crush Your people, O LORD; they oppress Your heritage.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
They break in pieces thy people, O Jehovah, And afflict thy heritage.
KJV
They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, and afflict thine heritage.
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This verse in Psalms 94
Commentary
13 notes on this verse"They have humbled your people, O Lord." Always the people of God are humbled, the people of God are oppressed. "They have humbled your people, O Lord." The people of God are humbled, and imitate God who was humbled and meek of heart.
This site's exposition
They pour out arrogant words
on Psalms 94:4-7
The crimes are named one by one, crushing God's people, killing the widow and the foreigner, murdering the fatherless. Deuteronomy 10:18 names the same three as the ones God Himself defends. Verse 7 gives the wicked's reason, that the LORD does not see.
This site's exposition
they oppress Your heritage
The singer calls the victims Your people and Your heritage, so the crime is against what belongs to God. Heritage is the word for an inheritance, land passed down in a family. To crush them is to damage His own.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
"Your people, O Lord, they have humbled, and your inheritance they have harassed." Who? The proud.
..."They have humbled Thy people, O Lord; and have troubled Thine heritage" (ver. 5). "They have murdered the widow, and the fatherless: and slain the proselyte" (ver. 6); that is, the traveller, the pilgrim: the comer from far, as the Psalmist calleth himself. Each of these expressions is too clear in meaning to make it worth while to dwell upon them.
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
The character of the enemies they complain against. They are wicked; they are workers of iniquity; they are bad, very bad, themselves, and therefore they hate and persecute those whose goodness shames and condemns them. Those are wicked indeed, and workers of the worst iniquity, lost to all honour and virtue, who are cruel to the innocent and hate the righteous.
This is a very good plea with God, in our intercessions for the church: "Lord, it is thine; thou hast a property in it. It is thy heritage; thou hast a pleasure in it, and out of it the rent of thy glory in this world issues.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — odd-straight-quotes
); they aim at no less; but the truth of the matter is that God by them chastens his people, as the father the son in whom he delights, and the persecutors are only the rod he makes use of. Howbeit they mean not so, neither doth their heart think so, Isa. x. Now it is here promised, 1.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
5 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
They break in pieces thy people, O Lord,....
The Nineteenth Century4 voices
They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, grinding them with oppression, crushing them with contempt. Yet the men they break in pieces are God's own people, and they are persecuted because they are so; this is a strong plea for the divine interposition. And afflict thine heritage, causing them sorrowful humiliation and deep depression of heart. The term, "thine heritage, "marks out the election of the saints, God's peculiar interest and delight in them, his covenant relation, of long standing, to them and their fathers; this also is a storehouse of arguments with their faithful God.
They break in pieces thy people, O Lord, grinding them with oppression, crushing them with contempt. Yet the men they break in pieces are God's own people, and they are persecuted because they are so; this is a strong plea for the divine interposition. And afflict thine heritage, causing them sorrowful humiliation and deep depression of heart. The term, "thine heritage, "marks out the election of the saints, God's peculiar interest and delight in them, his covenant relation, of long standing, to them and their fathers; this also is a storehouse of arguments with their faithful God. Will he not defend his own? Will a man lose his inheritance, or permit it to be contemptuously despoiled? Those who are ground down, and trampled on, are not strangers, but the choice and chosen ones of the Lord; how long will he leave them to be a prey to cruel foes
They break in pieces thy people - This was true af the Babylonians. Nehuchadnezzar slew many; carried the rest into captivity; ruined Jerusalem; overturned the temple; sacked, pillaged, and destroyed all the country.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
They break in pieces thy people - They tread down; they grind; they crush. The Hebrew word is often used as meaning to crush under foot; to trample on; and hence, it means to oppress. Lam 3:34; Isa 3:15. And afflict - To wit, by oppression and wrong. If this refers to foreigners, it means that they did this by invasion and by the ravages of war. Thine heritage - Thy people, regarded as an inheritance or possession. See Psa 28:9, note; Psa 33:12, note; Psa 68:9, note; Psa 74:2, note; Isa 19:25, note; Isa 47:6, note; 1Pe 5:3, note.
The words behind it
5 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| עַמְּךָ֣ | ʾamekha | people your | H5971 → | 1873 times |
| יְהוָ֣ה | yahweh | O Yahweh | H3068 → | 6520 times |
| יְדַכְּא֑וּ | yedakeu | they crush | H1792 → | 18 times |
| וְֽנַחֲלָתְךָ֥ | venachalatekha | and inheritance your | H5159 → | 222 times |
| יְעַנּֽוּ׃ | yeanu | they afflict | H6031 → | 82 times |
עַמְּךָ֣people your
ʾamekhaH5971 →1873 times
יְהוָ֣הO Yahweh
yahwehH3068 →6520 times
יְדַכְּא֑וּthey crush
yedakeuH1792 →18 times
וְֽנַחֲלָתְךָ֥and inheritance your
venachalatekhaH5159 →222 times
יְעַנּֽוּ׃they afflict
yeanuH6031 →82 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Isaiah 3:15Why do you crush My people and grind the faces of the poor?” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts.
it leads to
- Micah 3:2–3
You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones.
- Amos 2:6–7
This is what the LORD says: “For three transgressions of Israel, even four, I will not revoke My judgment, because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
- Amos 8:4–6
Hear this, you who trample the needy, who do away with the poor of the land,
- Micah 3:2–3
Through
Jeremiah 50:11“Because you rejoice, because you sing in triumph—you who plunder My inheritance—because you frolic like a heifer treading grain and neigh like stallions,
it leads to
- Isaiah 47:6
I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.
- Jeremiah 46:21
Even the mercenaries among her are like fattened calves. They too will turn back; together they will flee, they will not stand their ground, for the day of calamity is coming upon them—the time…
- Deuteronomy 32:15
But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
- Obadiah 1:12
But you should not gloat in that day, your brother’s day of misfortune, nor rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their destruction, nor boast proudly in the day of their…
- Ezekiel 26:2–3
“Son of man, because Tyre has said of Jerusalem, ‘Aha! The gate to the nations is broken; it has swung open to me; now that she lies in ruins I will be filled,’
- Isaiah 47:6
About Psalms
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 94; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 4; Jerome, Homily 22, on Psalm 93; Jerome, Homily 71, on Psalm 93 (Alternate Series); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.