What Does Habakkuk 3:9 Mean in the King James?
Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.
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 verse binds a stripped bow, a sworn word, and a split earth into one disclosure: divine power becomes visible as the ground opens into flow.
THE MEANING
The bow is laid bare, and the sworn word stands beside force in motion. The earth is not merely watered; it is cleaved open by rivers. Promise and upheaval meet as what is spoken becomes visible in the opening of what seemed closed.
THE ROOT
תְּבַקַּע
tevaqqaʿ
GROWS FROM
בקע
To split open, cleave, or break through.
“cleave” in this verse is tevaqqaʿ. The root links the earth being cleaved with a valley: both carry the shape of ground opened apart. Here the split is not abstract; it becomes a passage for rivers.
ALSO GROWS
biqʿah: A valley or plain.
בִּקְעָה
This landform shares the root’s image of terrain split open, giving the cleaving a shape you can see.
beqaʿ: A half or divided portion.
בֶּקַע
This branch carries the root’s sense of division, echoing the earth parted by the rivers.
שְׁבֻעוֹת
shevuʿot
GROWS FROM
שׁבע
To swear or bind by an oath.
“oaths” in this verse is shevuʿot. The word for oath makes commitment part of the verse’s force, not a passing sound. The sworn word stands alongside the exposed bow and cleaved earth as something enacted.
ALSO GROWS
shevuʿah: An oath.
שְׁבוּעָה
This noun shares the root and shows that the verse’s oaths are binding commitments.
nishbaʿ: Swore or took an oath.
נִשְׁבַּע
This verb shares the root and shows the act of binding oneself by a spoken promise.
אֹמֶר
omer
GROWS FROM
אמר
To say or utter.
The word translated “word” belongs to the root of speaking and saying. Set beside the oaths, it lets the verse hold utterance and commitment together, while the earth’s opening makes that word visible in action.
ALSO GROWS
ʾamar: To say or speak.
אָמַר
This verb shares the root and makes the spoken quality of the verse’s “word” explicit.
ʾimrah: An utterance or saying.
אִמְרָה
This noun shares the root and connects the word in the verse with something spoken.
THE PATTERN
What God opens becomes a passage through which water and life can move.
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths.He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.THE THREAD
He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths.The same Hebrew root בקע names both the earth cleaved here and the rock cleaved in the psalm. Psalm 78 makes the root’s life-giving possibility plain: the opening lets water emerge.
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