What Does 2 Samuel 22:4 Mean in the King James?

I will call on the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

2 Samuel 22:4 · KJV

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 deliverance here is a widening: enemy pressure narrows life, and the LORD brings it into spaciousness.

THE MEANING

When pressure from enemies narrows your life, your call to the LORD meets deliverance that opens space again. The threat is real, but it is not the whole landscape you occupy.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that the force pressing against you gets to define the final limits of your life.

THE ROOT

אִוָּשֵׁעַ

ʾivvāšēaʿ

GROWS FROM

ישע

y-š-ʿ

To deliver, bringing someone out of danger into spaciousness.

The Hebrew form ⁨אִוָּשֵׁעַ⁩ (ʾivvāšēaʿ, “I will be delivered”) comes from ⁨יָשַׁע⁩ (yasha, “to deliver; bring into spaciousness”). English “saved” can sound like a status; the root carries movement out of danger into room.

ALSO GROWS

yeshuah: Deliverance.

יְשׁוּעָה

This noun names the same movement from threat toward open space.

Yeshua: Yeshua; deliverance carried in a name.

יֵשׁוּעַ

The same root holds deliverance as a nature as well as an event.

אֶקְרָא

ʾeqraʾ

GROWS FROM

קרא

q-r-ʾ

To call, cry out, or proclaim.

The Hebrew verb ⁨אֶקְרָא⁩ (ʾeqraʾ, “I call”) shares a root that also carries calling aloud and reading or proclaiming. This is voiced address, placed directly beside the LORD’s praise and deliverance.

ALSO GROWS

qeriʾah: A call, cry, or recitation.

קְרִיאָה

It shows that “call” can be an audible cry, not only an inward request.

miqra: A reading, proclamation, or convocation.

מִקְרָא

The call-root can also name words spoken aloud and a gathering summoned by them.

THE PATTERN

Calling on the LORD is repeatedly joined to being brought out of trouble and into deliverance.

This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.

Psalm 34:6 · KJVThe speaker’s cry is met with hearing and deliverance from trouble.

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.

Joel 2:32 · KJVCalling on the LORD and being delivered appear as one movement.

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Romans 10:13 · KJVThe same calling-to-deliverance movement is stated as a promise to everyone who calls.

THE THREAD

I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.

Psalm 118:5 · KJV

The Hebrew form ⁨קָרָאתִי⁩ (qarati, “I called”) shares the root ⁨קרא⁩ (q-r-ʾ, “call”) with this verse. Psalm 118:5 makes the spatial movement explicit: the call rises from distress and is answered by being set in a large place.

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