Tap any verse number for what that verse means.
1Help, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.
2They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.
3The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh proud things:
4Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
5For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.
6The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.
8The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
Understand This
Psalm 12, explained
What Psalm 12 is saying
Psalm 12 is a community lament over the disappearance of the faithful and the prevalence of flattering, deceptive speech. The central oracle in verse 5—God's direct speech promising to arise and protect the afflicted—forms the psalm's theological pivot. The contrast between the 'pure words' of the LORD (refined silver, purified seven times) and the corrupt words of the wicked is structurally and thematically decisive.
The background behind it
The psalm reflects a society where duplicity has become normative, a situation that resonated across Israel's history from the monarchy through the post-exilic period. The superscription 'upon the sheminith' may indicate a lower-register musical setting.
Themes running underneath
Speech ethics are central: the wicked weaponize language through flattery and double-heartedness (lev v'lev, literally 'heart and heart'). Against this, God's words are presented as absolutely reliable, refined to perfection. The psalm establishes a fundamental biblical conviction that divine speech is categorically different from human speech.
Why it still matters
In an era of disinformation and manipulative rhetoric, this psalm's emphasis on the purity and reliability of God's words is acutely relevant. It calls readers to evaluate the words they consume and produce against the standard of divine speech.
Scripture text: King James Version — public domain.