What Does 1 Chronicles 16:21 Mean?
He lets no one press them, and sets kings right for their sake.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes,THE KEY
The Hebrew names “wrong” as exploitation (עשק), then shows protection reaching the rulers who could permit it.
THE MEANING
The verse presents your protection as reaching into power itself: exploitation is restrained, and rulers are answerable for how they treat you. Your vulnerability does not place you outside the reach of that care.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that rulers are beyond correction or that vulnerability leaves you alone.
THE ROOT
לְעָשְׁקָם
leʿoshqām
GROWS FROM
עשק
ʿāshaq (עשק): to oppress, exploit, or extort.
“press them” in this verse is leʿoshqām. The word translated “wrong” names exploitation: one person using power to take advantage of another. The verse’s protection addresses that harm directly and reaches even the kings who hold power.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāshaq: to oppress or defraud
עָשַׁק
This verb names the act behind the wrong in the verse.
ʿōshēq: an oppressor or exploiter
עֹשֵׁק
This form identifies the person doing the exploiting.
ʿāshûq: oppressed or exploited
עָשׁוּק
This form names the person who bears the harm the verse says is restrained.
וַיּוֹכַח
wayyōḵaḥ
GROWS FROM
יכח
yāḵaḥ (יכח): to reprove, correct, or establish a case.
“sets right” in this verse is wayyōḵaḥ. This root can describe both rebuke and the setting out of a case. Kings are not beyond answer here: their conduct is confronted and corrected.
ALSO GROWS
hôḵîaḥ: to reprove or correct
הוֹכִיחַ
This is the same verb family as the word translated “reproved.”
tôḵēḥāh: reproof or correction
תּוֹכֵחָה
This noun names the corrective confrontation directed at those in power.
הִנִּיחַ
hinnîaḥ
GROWS FROM
נוח
nûaḥ (נוח): to rest or settle; in the causative form, to let rest, leave, or permit.
“lets” in this verse is hinnîaḥ. Though English “suffered” can sound like enduring harm, the Hebrew here means allowing or permitting it. The verse says no one is left free to exploit them.
ALSO GROWS
nôaḥ: restful or at ease
נוֹחַ
This form preserves the root’s sense of rest, which appears in the verb family behind “suffered.”
menûḥāh: rest or a resting place
מְנוּחָה
This related form shows the root’s ordinary connection to rest and settling.
THE PATTERN
Protection takes shape by restraining exploitation and holding power answerable.
If you press them down in any way, and they cry out at all to me, I will surely hear and respond to their cry.For the LORD takes up their quarrel, and robs the living soul of those who rob them.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
So I turn back, and I see all the pressings that are done under the sun. And behold, the tears of the pressed, and no one to comfort them. And strength comes from the hand of their pressers, and no one to comfort them.Ecclesiastes uses the same עשק family for oppression and oppressors, the root behind “do them wrong” here. It names the human cost when power goes unchecked; this verse shows that same power being rebuked.
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