Psalm 36:11 — “Let not the foot of pride come against me”
Source: Psalm 36:11 (KJV / Hebrew numbering) = Psalm 35:12 (LXX / OSB numbering) Related practices: prayer log, humility prayer, daily petition, Jesus Prayer
The verse
KJV: “Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me.”
This sits in the only first-person petition of the entire psalm — bracketed between the great hymn to God’s chesed (vv. 5-9) and the closing imprecation against the wicked (v. 12). The whole psalm is theology — what the wicked do, what God is. Then suddenly v. 11: a personal request, small and specific.
Hebrew
אַל־תְּבוֹאֵנִי רֶגֶל גַּאֲוָה וְיַד־רְשָׁעִים אַל־תְּנִדֵנִי
al-tevo’eni regel ga’avah, ve-yad-resha’im al-tenideni
| Hebrew | Transliteration | Force |
|---|---|---|
| אַל | al | negative particle with jussive — “let not” |
| תְּבוֹאֵנִי | tevo’eni | ”may it come to me” — Qal jussive of bo + 1cs suffix. The verb of arrival. |
| רֶגֶל | regel | foot |
| גַּאֲוָה | ga’avah | pride / arrogance / majesty (root ga’ah — to rise up, swell) |
| וְיַד | ve-yad | and the hand |
| רְשָׁעִים | resha’im | wicked ones (plural) |
| אַל־תְּנִדֵנִי | al-tenideni | ”let it not drive me away” — Hiphil jussive of nud + 1cs suffix |
Three things the Hebrew does that English flattens
1. The verb of arrival — bo is the same root used for entering the Promised Land, for the LORD coming to His temple, for Boaz coming to the threshing floor. It is the verb of arriving, entering, coming into a space. The petition is spatial: let pride’s foot not come to me, not arrive at me, not enter my territory. Pride is pictured as a foot that walks toward the speaker and treads on him.
2. Ga’avah (pride) has a double valence. The same Hebrew root produces:
- ga’avah = arrogance, the creature’s swelling-up of self (the negative sense here)
- ga’on = majesty, God’s exaltation (Exod 15:7, Ps 93:1)
The root is morally neutral. It means rising up, mounting up, swelling. Whether that swelling is sin or glory depends entirely on the subject: God’s swelling-up is majesty; the creature’s swelling-up is pride. The Hebrew quietly names that pride is glory misappropriated — the creature trying to occupy a posture that belongs only to the Creator. The same insight Lewis stated in Mere Christianity: pride is “the great sin” because it is the attempt to be God.
3. Nud (the second verb) is the wanderer-verb. Used of:
- Cain after the murder of Abel — “a fugitive and a vagabond” (Gen 4:12, 14 — na ve-nad)
- The exiles
- The bird without a nest (Prov 27:8)
The second clause isn’t generic “removal.” It is: let not the hand of the wicked make me into a Cain — a wanderer, displaced, homeless.
Poetic parallel
| Clause 1 | Clause 2 |
|---|---|
| pride’s foot | wicked’s hand |
| coming to me (arrival) | driving me away (displacement) |
| spatial intrusion | spatial expulsion |
The two clauses bracket the speaker. Pride encroaches from outside; the wicked exile from inside. The prayer is to remain in place — neither trampled where you stand, nor driven out from where you belong.
Greek (LXX, Brenton numbering Ps 35:12)
μὴ ἐλθέτω μοι ποὺς ὑπερηφανίας, καὶ χεὶρ ἁμαρτωλῶν μὴ σαλεύσαι με
mē elthetō moi pous hyperēphanias, kai cheir hamartōlōn mē saleusai me
| Greek | Force |
|---|---|
| μὴ ἐλθέτω | ”let it not come” — aorist imperative of erchomai |
| ποὺς ὑπερηφανίας | ”foot of arrogance” — hyperēphania = literal “appearing-above-ness” |
| χεὶρ ἁμαρτωλῶν | ”hand of sinners” — LXX says hamartōloi (sinners) where KJV says “wicked” |
| μὴ σαλεύσαι | ”let it not shake” — aorist optative of saleuō (to shake, agitate, cause to totter) |
What the Greek shifts
1. The pride word becomes hyperēphania. This is the word the NT uses for pride. Most important occurrences:
- Mark 7:22 — Jesus lists hyperēphania among the things that defile from within the heart
- Romans 1:30 — Paul lists hyperēphanoi in the indictment of fallen humanity
- James 4:6 / 1 Peter 5:5 — both citing Prov 3:34 LXX: “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble”
- Luke 1:51 — Mary’s Magnificat: “He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts”
When the NT says God resists the proud, the word it uses is the same word the LXX gives to Psalm 35:12. The verse sits at the headwaters of the NT theology of pride. Hyperēphania literally = “appearing-over” — pride as the posture of showing yourself above others.
2. The displacement verb becomes saleuō — the shake-loose verb. Same root used in:
- Hebrews 12:26-27 — “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven… removing of those things that are shaken so that things which cannot be shaken may remain”
- Acts 4:31 — the place was shaken where the disciples were praying
- Luke 6:48 — the house on the rock that the flood could not shake
The LXX deepens the petition. The wandering-verb of Cain becomes the shake-loose verb — the petition is no longer just “let me not be driven into exile” but “let me not be made unstable, shaken loose from my ground.” The Eastern Orthodox reading puts this in continuity with Heb 12 — the unshakeable life is the life rooted in God; pride and the works of the wicked are what shake the soul loose from that ground.
Practice distillations
1. Pride walks toward you — keep watch at the door
The verse personifies pride as having a foot. The foot is the part of the body that walks toward you, stands on you, claims territory. In ancient near-eastern royal iconography, kings are depicted with their foot on the necks of conquered enemies. Joshua 10:24 — “put your feet upon the necks of these kings.” Psalm 110:1 — “until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”
When the psalmist prays “let not the foot of pride come against me,” he is praying against being conquered by pride. Not against being mildly tempted; against being occupied territory. Pride is the foreign army that doesn’t merely tempt but treads upon, stands on the neck of, claims dominion over the heart.
The diagnostic: pride is not just an attitude you have. It is something that walks toward you. It can arrive. It can come into your territory. The work is to keep watch at the door — to recognize the foot’s arrival before it has already stood on your neck.
2. Pride dis-places
The companion verb names the consequence: once pride sets its foot, the hand displaces you, shakes you loose, drives you out from where you belong. Pride dis-places. It does not just elevate; it dislodges.
The proud cannot stay where they are; they are always reaching for somewhere higher, and in the reaching they lose the ground they were given. The petition asks to remain rooted — to be the unshakeable house on the rock of Luke 6:48, not the shaken thing of Heb 12.
3. The verse for the person who hears pride’s footsteps
This is the right verse for the person who knows pride is on the move — not the person who has already fallen (that’s Psalm 51 territory), not the person who fancies themselves safe. The person who has heard the footsteps and is praying before the foot lands.
Practice: pray it daily, but especially before any work where pride’s foot is genuinely walking toward you — work that goes well, recognition received, teaching, mentoring, publishing, any public-facing service. The verse names the walking and asks the LORD to halt it before it arrives. It does not ask for pride to be impossible; it asks for it not to come to you. That distinction is the gift of the verse — it takes pride seriously as a real adversary that can arrive, and asks for protection against the arrival.
4. Pair with Psalm 131 (the post-arrival posture)
Two halves of the work:
- Psalm 36:11 — keep pride from arriving (pre-arrival petition)
- Psalm 131 — keep the heart in the weaned-child posture (post-arrival stance — soul already weaned, not reaching for what is too high)
If 36:11 is the door, 131 is the room. Together they cover the full structure: the foot that walks toward you, and the soul that has nothing in it for the foot to stand on.
5. The smallness IS the substance
The psalmist has just sung God’s mercy reaching to the heavens, His judgments like the great deep (vv. 5-9). The only thing he asks for himself is to remain where he is, rooted, not encroached upon by pride, not shaken from his place.
That smallness is the substance. Not “destroy my enemies,” not “give me kingdoms,” but let pride’s foot not come to me; let me not be shaken loose. The right scale of petition after the cosmic mercy hymn. The right scale of petition for anyone who has been given much.
Praying it now
Lord, let not pride’s foot arrive at me — let it not enter my territory, not tread on me, not claim dominion. And let me not be shaken loose, driven out from where you have planted me. Keep me rooted. Let the swelling-up that belongs to you alone remain yours; let me be small, in my place, unshaken.
Cross-references
../practices/praying-for-humility.md— this verse is the daily petition in that cycle (Psalm 131 + Psalm 51:10-17 + Psalm 36:11). The practice file gives the daily rhythm; this file gives the close-reading substrate.../concordance/law-pride.md— verses on pride across KJV../concordance/law-humble.md— verses on humility across KJV./moses-aaron-hur.md— the third-register sister text (sustainer-as-faith)