What Does Psalm 104:23 Mean in the King James?
Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until the evening.
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
Hebrew calls the worker אָדָם (adam), the ground-being, and names his labor with the root of service: human work belongs to the earth’s daily rhythm.
THE MEANING
You go out to work as a human shaped from the ground, part of the living world’s daily rhythm. Your labor fills the daylight stretch and reaches its boundary at evening.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that work must fill every hour is undone here: human labor has a boundary, and evening marks it.
THE ROOT
אָדָם
ʾāḏām
GROWS FROM
אדם
ʾāḏām
Ground-being; אדם is linked by Hebrew wordplay to אדמה, ground or soil.
“Man” in this verse is ʾāḏām. אָדָם (adam) is linked in Hebrew wordplay to אֲדָמָה (adamah), ground: the worker is a ground-being. The verse places human effort within the life of the earth.
ALSO GROWS
ʾăḏāmāh: ground, soil
אֲדָמָה
This is the ground word echoed by אָדָם, linking the human who works with the earth-shaped world.
ʾāḏōm: red
אָדֹם
The shared consonants carry the word-family’s association with redness, echoing the earth-colored wordplay that binds the human name to the ground.
לַעֲבֹדָתוֹ
laʿăvōḏāṯō
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿāḇaḏ
serve, work
עבד (avad) holds serving and working in one root. The verse’s “labour” therefore carries the texture of service within the day’s activity.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeḇeḏ: servant
עֶבֶד
The related noun makes the service carried in the root visible.
ʿăḇōḏāh: work, labor, service
עֲבוֹדָה
This is the work-and-service noun form that appears in the verse.
לְפָעֳלוֹ
ləpāʿŏlō
GROWS FROM
פעל
pāʿal
do, act, carry out
“work” in this verse is ləpāʿŏlō. פעל (pa’al) names doing or action, while עבד (avad) names working and serving. The verse holds the act and its service together in one day’s labor.
ALSO GROWS
pāʿal: do, act
פָּעַל
This verb form makes the root’s sense of action explicit.
pōʿal: work, deed
פֹּעַל
This related noun carries the sense of an action or its result, illuminating “his work” in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Human work unfolds within an ordered rhythm of activity and cessation, marked by day and night.
The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens.Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.THE THREAD
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.The same root עבד (avad), meaning to work or serve, names the labor here and the work of tending the garden there. Together the verses place your daily labor within humanity’s role in the living world.
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