What Does Nehemiah 1:7 Mean in the King James?
We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandedst thy servant Moses.
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 Hebrew behind “kept” means watched and guarded, so the confession names not only disobedience but a failure to guard what was entrusted.
THE MEANING
The verse gives the living reader language for a breach with two faces: harm done toward God and instruction left unguarded. Its commandments, statutes, and judgments name the whole order entrusted, rather than one isolated lapse. The confession speaks plainly about the damage instead of reducing it to a vague feeling of regret.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a vague sense of regret accounts for the whole breach; this verse names both dealing corruptly toward God and failing to guard what was commanded.
THE ROOT
שָׁמַרְנוּ
shāmar-nû
GROWS FROM
שמר
š-m-r
To guard, watch over, or keep.
“kept” in this verse is shāmar-nû. Shamar carries the sense of standing watch over something entrusted. The confession therefore names a failure of guardianship, not merely a failure to remember a rule.
ALSO GROWS
shōmēr: Watchman, keeper, or guardian.
שֹׁמֵר
A shōmēr stands watch; this branch makes the force of “not kept” clearer as letting the watch lapse.
mishmeret: Guard duty, watch, or an entrusted charge.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
The same root can name a duty entrusted to someone, linking the commandments to something meant to be guarded.
חֻקִּים
ḥuqqîm
GROWS FROM
חקק
ḥ-q-q
To cut or inscribe, and by extension to prescribe or establish a decree.
The word for statutes draws on a root of marking out and establishing. Alongside the root for guarding, it presents the breach as leaving unguarded what had been set in place.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōq: A statute, ordinance, or decree.
חֹק
This singular form belongs to the same root family as the statutes named in the verse.
meḥōqēq: A lawgiver or one who decrees.
מְחֹקֵק
This branch connects an established statute with the one who sets it in place.
צִוִּיתָ
ṣiwîṯā
GROWS FROM
צוה
ṣ-w-h
To command, direct, or charge.
The commandments are not a free-floating list: the verse ties them to a charge given through Moses. The verb “commandedst” and the Hebrew word for “commandment” share this root.
ALSO GROWS
miṣwāh: Commandment or charge.
מִצְוָה
This is the noun behind the verse’s “commandments,” from the same root as “commandedst.”
ṣaw: Command, precept, or directive.
צַו
This branch shows the root extending to a directive that is given and carried out.
THE PATTERN
Truthful confession names the breach plainly instead of reducing it to a vague feeling.
If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments:If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.THE THREAD
Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee.Here the same root, shamar, appears in “diligently keep,” alongside commandments and statutes. Nehemiah’s confession names the other side of that watch: what was entrusted to be guarded has been left unguarded.
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