What Does Psalm 105:14 Mean in the King James?
He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes;
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
God’s defense reaches beyond the hand that harms to the king who must answer for it.
THE MEANING
You are held within a protection that restrains the hand that would exploit you and confronts even kings on your behalf. Authority does not place anyone beyond correction, and your cause is not invisible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that powerful people can wrong you without answer; this verse places kings under correction for the sake of those they might harm.
THE ROOT
לְעָשְׁקָם
ləʿāšqām
GROWS FROM
ע־ש־ק
ʿ-š-q
To oppress, exploit, or extort, to press another unjustly.
The root gives “wrong” the specific texture of someone being pressed or exploited. The protection reaches the vulnerable person at that point, before oppression can settle into their life.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōšeq: Oppression, extortion
עֹשֶׁק
It names the harm as unjust pressure, sharpening the force of “wrong” in the verse.
ʿāšūq: A person who is oppressed or exploited
עָשׁוּק
It turns the root toward the person under that pressure, the very person the verse protects.
וַיּוֹכַח
wayyōḵaḥ
GROWS FROM
י־כ־ח
y-k-ḥ
To decide a dispute, prove, correct, or reprove.
“reproved” in this verse is wayyōḵaḥ. This is more than scolding: the root also carries the sense of deciding or arguing a case. The verse brings royal power into the question of what is right, on behalf of those under its reach.
ALSO GROWS
tōḵēḥāh: Reproof, correction
תּוֹכֵחָה
It shows the corrective force of the root that appears when kings are reproved.
mōḵîaḥ: One who reproves or argues a case
מוֹכִיחַ
It echoes the root’s sense of bringing a wrong forward for correction.
THE PATTERN
Protection of the vulnerable confronts both the oppression itself and the power that stands behind it.
He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor.For the LORD will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.The word translated “oppressions” comes from the same Hebrew root as “do them wrong” here, carrying the sense of exploitation that presses people down. Ecclesiastes names what that pressure looks like when it is backed by power and no comforter appears, opening the stakes of the psalm’s defense.
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