What Does Psalm 105:33 Mean in the King James?
He smote their vines also and their fig trees; and brake the trees of their coasts.
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 strike reaches beyond fruit-bearing vines and figs to the trees marking the territory itself.
THE MEANING
God’s strike falls on the vines and fig trees, then breaks the trees of their territory. Fruit-bearing life and the trees at the land’s edges are both under the blow.
THE ROOT
וַיְשַׁבֵּר
vayeshabber
GROWS FROM
שבר
sh-b-r
To break or shatter.
English “brake” can sound like ordinary damage, but שבר also names breakage and the force of something breaking against a surface. Here the action is rupture: the trees of the territory are shattered.
ALSO GROWS
shever: Breakage, fracture, ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
This branch names the rupture itself, showing the force carried by “brake.”
mishbar: Breaker; breaking wave or surf.
מִשְׁבָּר
The same root describes a wave as a breaker, linking the broken trees to a force that crashes against and breaks what it meets.
וַיַּךְ
vayyakh
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
To strike or smite.
“smote” in this verse is vayyakh. The root’s noun מַכָּה can mean both a blow and a plague, joining a single strike to the language of calamity. Here the blow lands on the land’s fruit-bearing growth before the verse names the trees being broken.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: Blow; plague.
מַכָּה
The word connects the act of striking with the larger force of a calamity.
makkeh: One who strikes; a striker.
מַכֵּה
This branch gives the root an agent as well as an action, keeping the force of the strike in view.
THE PATTERN
Judgment is pictured as reaching into the land’s productive life and stripping its trees and fruit.
A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men.The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.THE THREAD
And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field.Exodus uses the same roots for “smote” (נכה) and “brake” (שבר), widening the blow from the vines and fig trees here to every herb and tree in the field. The shared words make the strike and the breaking part of one connected devastation.
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