Psalms 107:34 Meaning and Explanation
“A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.”
King James Version (KJV)
Read this verse in context with translation switching:
Read Full Chapter →Few lines in the Psalter connect moral life and physical landscape so directly. Verse 34 refuses to treat human wickedness as a private matter with private consequences. It claims that a community's conduct reaches the soil, and it says so without naming a particular nation, which leaves the principle available to any reader in any century.
Productive country becomes salt waste, and the psalm gives a reason: the wickedness of its inhabitants. Land and conduct are linked here, so what people do affects the ground they live on.
The Context of Psalms 107:34
Verse 34 completes the sentence begun in verse 33, where God turns rivers into wilderness and springs into dry ground. Together they form the first half of a two-part reversal in the psalm's closing meditation, verses 33 through 43. The second half arrives in verses 35 through 38, where wilderness becomes standing water and the hungry are settled with fields and vineyards. The Hebrew word behind 'barrenness' is literally saltiness, which recalls the region around the Dead Sea and the account of Sodom in Genesis. Verse 43 invites the wise to observe patterns like this one.
What Does Psalms 107:34 Mean?
The line has no verb of its own; 'turneth' from verse 33 still governs it. 'A fruitful land' translates a phrase meaning land of fruit, country whose whole identity is its productivity. 'Barrenness' renders a Hebrew word built on salt, so the picture is ground gone bitter and useless for planting. Then comes the clause that changes the tone: 'for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.' The preposition assigns a cause. Those who dwell in the land are the ones whose conduct is named, which keeps the judgment specific to a population and its choices instead of blaming the land itself.
Israel's Scriptures repeatedly tie the fruitfulness of the land to the covenant life of the people in it. Leviticus and Deuteronomy set out blessings of rain and harvest alongside warnings of drought and iron skies. The prophets describe the land mourning because of what its inhabitants have done. Verse 34 compresses that whole tradition into one line. It also sits deliberately beside verse 35, where the movement runs the other way and wilderness becomes water. The psalm gives no hint that barrenness is the last word for any place. Both verses show the same hand at work, responsive to how people live.
Genesis reports that the plain of Jordan was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the LORD, before Sodom was overthrown and the region left in salt and burning. Deuteronomy points back to that ruin as a warning to later generations. The pattern reappears in the words of Jesus, who spoke of a fig tree cumbering the ground and of branches that bear no fruit, and who wept over a city that did not know the time of its visitation. Fruitfulness in Scripture is a gift held in trust. Verse 34 states the sober half of that trust plainly.
Psalms 107:34 in the Original Language
melechah (מְלֵחָה), 'barrenness' -- salt flat, ground crusted with salt so that nothing grows. The KJV chooses a general word for a very specific picture, land ruined in the way the country near the Dead Sea is ruined, where crops cannot take root.
Bible Verses Related to Psalms 107:34
“And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.”
- Genesis 13:10
“And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:”
- Deuteronomy 29:23
“How long shall the land mourn, and the herbs of every field wither, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? the beasts are consumed, and the birds; because they said, He shall not see our last end.”
- Jeremiah 12:4
“And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.”
- Leviticus 26:20
Where Psalms 107:34 Echoes in Scripture
Deuteronomy 29:23 describes a land of brimstone and salt and burning, sown with nothing and growing nothing, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. Moses presents that scene as what later generations and foreign visitors would see and ask about, and the answer given is the covenant that the people forsook. Psalm 107:34 states the same connection in half a line, and places it inside a song of thanks, where the wise are invited to notice how God governs.
How to Apply Psalms 107:34 Today
Shared life has shared consequences. Verse 34 gives us a reason to care about the moral health of the places we belong to, since households, workplaces, and neighborhoods can go bitter through habits nobody names out loud. Small practices matter here. We can tell the truth in rooms where lying is easy, refuse to profit from arrangements that hurt the vulnerable, and repair what we damage instead of moving on. The verse also invites honest self-examination without panic, because the very next line shows God turning wilderness back into springs. Barren ground has a history of being watered again.
Reflection & Prayer
What is one habit in a place we share with others that quietly salts the soil for everyone in it? A prayer for common ground: Lord, you see what my community has become and what my part in it has been. Give me courage to change what is mine to change, and mercy on the ground we all stand on. Amen.