What Does Psalm 104:21 Mean in the King James?
The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.
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 lion’s hunt still ends in dependence: even its fierce hunger seeks food from God.
THE MEANING
Your hunger does not place you outside God’s provision. Even the lion’s fierce pursuit is held inside dependence: its food is sought from God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the thought that only the gentle or harmless are within God’s care; the predator, too, depends on God for its food.
THE ROOT
אָכְלָם
ʾokhlām
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
Eat, consume.
The word rendered “meat” names what is eaten, from the same root that means “eat.” English can make the food sound like something the lion simply takes, but the verse places both its appetite and its food within dependence on God.
ALSO GROWS
ʾākal: To eat, consume.
אָכַל
The verb names the act that turns provision into nourishment; the lion’s “meat” belongs to this same eating-word.
maʾăkāl: Food, something eaten.
מַאֲכָל
This noun keeps the object of eating in the same root family, joining sustenance to consumption.
THE PATTERN
Every creature’s sustenance depends on God’s provision, whether it waits, cries, or hunts.
The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season.He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?THE THREAD
These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.The same Hebrew form אָכְלָם (ʾokhlām, “their food”) appears in both verses: what the lions seek from God is what all creatures wait for God to give. The passage moves from fierce pursuit to provision without pretending the hunt is gentle.
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