What Does Psalm 105:12 Mean in the King James?
When they were but a few men in number; yea, very few, and strangers in it.
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
They are strangers in the very land already named as their inheritance.
THE MEANING
You can stand in a place named for your inheritance and still live there as an outsider. The verse holds promise and unsettled belonging together; being promised a place does not mean you already possess it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A promised place must already feel like home. The verse holds inheritance and strangerhood together.
THE ROOT
גֵּרִים
gērîm
GROWS FROM
גּוּר
To sojourn or reside as an outsider.
The word for “strangers” grows from a root of dwelling: a גֵּר (gēr, sojourner or resident outsider) lives in a place without the standing of a native owner. Here they are present in the land of their inheritance, yet their dwelling there is still unsettled.
ALSO GROWS
gēr: Sojourner or resident outsider.
גֵּר
This singular form shows that “stranger” describes someone’s status as a dweller in the place.
māgôr: Sojourning or residence.
מָגוֹר
This related noun carries the root’s focus on dwelling, illuminating how the strangers are present in the land without being settled in it.
THE PATTERN
A people’s smallness or outsider status can be real without exhausting their identity.
And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous:These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.THE THREAD
And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God, A Syrian ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous:Psalm 105 calls them “strangers”; Deuteronomy uses the same Hebrew root when it says their father “sojourned.” The same verse joins that few, unsettled beginning to a people becoming a nation, showing that strangerhood describes their dwelling status, not their whole identity.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us