What Does 2 Samuel 22:25 Mean in the King James?
Therefore the LORD hath recompensed me according to my righteousness; according to my cleanness in his eye sight.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word translated “recompensed” means “returned”: the LORD’s response corresponds to the alignment and cleanness he sees in you.
THE MEANING
Your alignment and cleanness are fully visible to the LORD, and his response corresponds to the life he sees. The verse holds outward conduct and inner integrity together before his sight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the LORD’s response is detached from the way a life is actually lived.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשֶׁב
wayyashev
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
Turn back, return; in causative forms, cause to return or restore.
The Hebrew verb pictures recompense as something returned to a person. English “recompensed” preserves the idea of response, while the root makes the returning motion visible.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Turn, return.
שׁוּב
This is the root beneath the verse’s image of a response coming back to the person.
heshiv: Bring back, restore, return.
הֵשִׁיב
The causative form shows how the root can describe making something return.
teshuvah: Return, turning.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This branch carries the same movement of turning back that gives “recompensed” its returning shape.
צִדְקָתִי
tsidqati
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
Be right or just; alignment.
Alongside righteousness as moral rightness, the root carries the image of alignment. The verse sets the LORD’s response alongside the alignment he sees in a person.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice, rightness, alignment.
צֶדֶק
It shows the shared root’s connection between righteousness and what is set right.
tsaddiq: A just, righteous, aligned person.
צַדִּיק
This branch describes a person through the same quality the verse names as the measure of recompense.
בֹּרִי
bori
GROWS FROM
ברר
barar
Clarify, purify, make clean.
The word for cleanness is connected with being clear or pure. Beside “in his eye sight,” it presents integrity as something that stands openly before the LORD’s seeing.
ALSO GROWS
bor: Purity, cleanness.
בֹּר
This related word makes the purity in “my cleanness” concrete.
barur: Clear, pure.
בָּרוּר
Its sense of clarity illuminates the verse’s pairing of cleanness with what is seen.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s response returns to each person in keeping with the integrity and conduct he sees.
The LORD render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness: for the LORD delivered thee into my hand to day, but I would not stretch forth mine hand against the LORD’s anointed.For the work of a man shall he render unto him, and cause every man to find according to his ways.For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.THE THREAD
If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?Proverbs uses the same Hebrew return-root, שׁוּב (shuv), behind “render” that appears behind “recompensed” here. Both verses picture a response returning in keeping with what the LORD sees in a person.
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