Verse Lens · Concise explanation
Psalms 31:13 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 13. 13For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Psalm 31:13: The reason or consequence in “For I have heard the slander of many” supports the surrounding claim in “Refuge amid slander, isolation, and grief.”
Read It With
- Psalms 31:1–24
Read Psalms 31:13 with 31:1–24. Read alone, “For I have heard the slander of many” could lose the individual voice, the parallel line or movement it develops, and the psalm's outcome. The complete movement establishes: Within Psalms 31:1–24, the individual voice carries the movement “Refuge amid slander, isolation, and grief” as part of “Refuge amid slander, isolation, and grief.” Its lament-confidence form and poetic parallelism hold the petitions, images, memories, or praise together before any single line is applied.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Psalms 31:1–24 opens Psalm 31 with “In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy…” and establishes the individual voice and “Refuge amid slander, isolation, and grief” movement before later lines develop or answer it. Within that relationship, Psalm 31:13 supplies a reason or consequence through “For I have heard the slander of many” and must be read with the claim it supports.
What Remains True
Psalm 31:13 carries “For I have heard the slander of many” inside the lament-confidence movement “Refuge amid slander, isolation, and grief.” Its durable contribution is this: Biblical faith can speak unresolved pain directly, remain in relationship, seek safe help, and refuse the claim that anguish proves guilt or failed faith. The local movement is “Refuge amid slander, isolation, and grief.” The unit's reviewed limit is: The poem's bodily and social anguish must not be romanticized, diagnosed from afar, or used to tell sufferers that trust ends distress on demand.
How It Can Shape Life
- Keep the movement “Refuge amid slander, isolation, and grief” in view. Make room for the emotion in “For I have heard the slander of many”, ask what safety and companionship require now, and resist a neat answer the psalm itself does not give. The textual reason is this verse's role: Psalm 31:13 supplies a reason or consequence through “For I have heard the slander of many” and must be read with the claim it supports.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read Psalms 31:1–24 — Refuge amid slander, isolation, and griefSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Psalms 31:1–24, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Psalms
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Ps.xml, OSIS 31:1–24
Open the fixed Hebrew Psalms file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible Notes: Psalms 1-150
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, current official online edition
Supports: Verse-level controls for poetic syntax, imagery, older KJV language, textual issues, headings, and alternatives in Psalms 31:1–24.
Exact location: Official NET Bible Psalm 31 HTML, translator, textual, and study notes attached to Psalms 31:1–24
Open the official NET Psalms notes ↗