---
title: Psalms 140:5 (JPS 1917) — Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the… · tree and pragmatics
description: Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to make my steps slip. Who acts: you, violent man, steps, my. Psalms 140:5 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Psalms 140:5 · JPS 1917

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Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to make my steps slip.

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**Who acts:** you, violent man, steps, my · **What happens:** keep, preserve, purpose, make, slip, step · **To what, where:** me, hands, steps

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This is Psalms 140:5 · JPS 1917 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, violent man, steps, my), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:PSA:2556
# text = Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to make my steps slip.
1	Keep	keep	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	1	obj	_	_
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	O	o	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	_
5	LORD	LORD	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	vocative	_	_
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	from	from	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	wicked	wicked	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
13	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
14	preserve	preserve	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	1	conj	_	_
15	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
18	violent	violent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
20	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
21	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
22	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	purposed	purpose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	19	acl:relcl	_	_
24	to	to	PART	TO	_	25	mark	_	_
25	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	23	xcomp	_	_
26	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	27	nmod:poss	_	_
27	steps	step	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	obj	_	_
28	slip	slip	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	25	xcomp	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: command
- act: request
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed polarity=none

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **keep** | imperative | you *not said here* |  | me | the hands of the wicked |  | LORD *vocative* | vn forbid-64.4 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Causer i=Beneficiary from hand=Eventuality |
| 2 | **preserve** | infinitive | you *not said here* |  | me |  |  | from the violent man | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary from man=Theme |
| 3 | **purpose** *speech: other* | present · perfect | the violent man |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **make** | to-infinitive | the violent man *not said here* | my steps |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **slip** | infinitive | my steps *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 6 | **step** |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom step «act transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

<!-- .vhe dir=rtl lang=hbo -->
שָׁמְרֵ֤נִי יְהוָ֨ה ׀ מִ֘ידֵ֤י רָשָׁ֗ע מֵאִ֣ישׁ חֲמָסִ֣ים תִּנְצְרֵ֑נִי אֲשֶׁ֥ר חָ֝שְׁב֗וּ לִדְח֥וֹת פְּעָמָֽי׃

[Psalms 140:5: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and the Targum →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/PSA.140.5/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:PSA:2556` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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