The trouble they make for others backfires on them. The violence they plan falls on their own heads.
Parallel translations
- WEB The trouble he causes shall return to his own head. His violence shall come down on the crown of his own head.
- KJV His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.
- BSB His trouble recoils on himself, and his violence falls on his own head.
- NKJV His trouble shall return upon his own head, And his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown.
- NASB His harm will return on his own head, And his violence will descend on the top of his own head.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The mischief the wicked man devises recoils onto his own head. God's justice turns evil back upon the one who plots it.
Overview
David closes his appeal in Psalm 7 confident that the violence designed against the innocent will rebound on the aggressor. This is the principle of poetic justice woven into God's moral order: the pit-digger falls into his own pit. It anticipates the cross, where evil's ultimate assault on the righteous One became the means of its own defeat.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Esth 9:25but when this became known to the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device, which he had devised against the Jews, should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows.
- Ps 37:12–13The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth.
- 1 Kgs 2:32Yahweh will return his blood on his own head, because he fell on two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword, and my father David didn’t know it: Abner the son of Ner, captain of the army of Israel, and Amasa the son of Jether, captain of the army of Judah.
- Ps 36:12There the workers of iniquity are fallen. They are thrust down, and shall not be able to rise.
- 1 Sam 28:19Moreover Yahweh will deliver Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines; and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Yahweh will deliver the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.”
- 1 Sam 24:12–13May Yahweh judge between me and you, and may Yahweh avenge me of you; but my hand will not be on you.
- 1 Sam 26:10David said, “As Yahweh lives, Yahweh will strike him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall go down into battle and perish.
- 1 Sam 31:3–4The battle went hard against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers.
- Ps 36:4He plots iniquity on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He doesn’t abhor evil.
- 1 Sam 23:9David knew that Saul was devising mischief against him; and he said to Abiathar the priest, “Bring the ephod here.”
- Mal 2:3–5Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 7:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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