Hebrew word · H7750
שׂוּט
vesatei
to swerve
Śûṭ (a form of śaṭah, 'to turn aside') means to swerve or veer. In Ps 101:3 the related noun refers to those who fall away. Kazav means a lie, something deceptive, sometimes a false god (Amos 2:4, 'their lies, after which their fathers walked').
Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
1) to swerve, fall away
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to swerve, fall away
1a2) those falling away (participle)
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
Śûṭ (a form of śaṭah, 'to turn aside') means to swerve or veer. In Ps 101:3 the related noun refers to those who fall away. Kazav means a lie, something deceptive, sometimes a false god (Amos 2:4, 'their lies, after which their fathers walked'). It is used for a spring that fails (Isa 58:11 uses the verb for water that 'does not fail', lōʾ yəkhazzəvû).
- Against the English
KJV/WEB 'such as turn aside to lies'. BSB 'those who lapse into falsehood'. ESV 'go astray after a lie'. NIV and NLT take it as idolatry: 'false gods', or those who worship idols. The Hebrew allows either reading. 'Lie' is the literal sense, and the idol sense is a fair inference.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Kazav and its verb describe what disappoints a person who relies on it (Mic 1:14, 'a deceptive thing'). Prophetic polemic calls idols lies (Jer 16:19, 'our fathers inherited nothing but lies').
Where it appears
Psalms · 1
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Psalm 40:4 וְשָׂטֵ֥י and [those who] fall away of
Blessed is the man who has made the LORD his trust, who has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.
Here: 'And swervers of…': people who veer off the path. Here they are defined by what they swerve toward or after.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.