What Does Psalm 102:20 Mean in the King James?
To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death;
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 verb translated “loose” means “open,” so release appears as a way opened through what had been closed.
THE MEANING
Your groaning in confinement is heard, and the verse places an opening beside those bound toward death. Captivity and mortality are named plainly, yet neither is the whole picture.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being trapped means you are unheard, or that a condition marked by death cannot be opened.
THE ROOT
לִפְתֹּחַ
liphtoach
GROWS FROM
פתח
Open; make an opening.
The Hebrew verb pictures release as an opening. English “loose” names the result; the root shows the way through confinement: what is shut becomes open.
ALSO GROWS
petach: Opening; doorway.
פֶּתַח
The doorway is an opening through which someone can pass, giving the verse’s release a concrete image.
patuach: Open.
פָּתוּחַ
This form describes the state created by the verse’s action: the way is open.
אָסִיר
asir
GROWS FROM
אסר
Bind; tie up.
The word for prisoner carries the sense of being bound within it. Set beside פתח, “open,” the verse places binding and an opening in the same breath.
ALSO GROWS
asar: To bind; tie up.
אָסַר
This verb shows the binding action beneath the prisoner’s condition.
asur: Bound; forbidden.
אָסוּר
This form links being physically bound with being held back from a way forward.
תְּמוּתָה
temutah
GROWS FROM
מות
Die; death.
“appointed to death” in this verse is temutah. The Hebrew phrase is literally “sons of death,” giving the death-bound condition a stark image. The verse sets an opening beside those described as belonging to death’s domain.
ALSO GROWS
mut: To die.
מוּת
The verb names the movement toward death that the verse holds in view.
mavet: Death.
מָוֶת
This noun shares the root and makes explicit the condition named in “sons of death.”
THE PATTERN
When the groaning of the confined is heard, the way toward release opens.
And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD:The verb “open” in both verses comes from the Hebrew root פתח (patach). Psalm 118 uses it for gates the speaker enters; Psalm 102 applies the same opening image to those bound toward death.
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