What Does Psalm 106:31 Mean in the King James?
And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore.
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 verse says Phinehas’s killing is entered as alignment, and that reckoning is carried across generations.
THE MEANING
The verse sets before you a stark accounting: Phinehas’s killing is counted as alignment. That judgment reaches generation after generation, preserving the text’s naming of violence as righteousness in the inherited story.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Righteousness always describes harmless conduct; here the text explicitly counts a killing as righteousness.
THE ROOT
וַתֵּחָשֶׁב
vatteḥāšēv
GROWS FROM
חשב
ḥ-š-b
To think, devise, reckon, or account; here, “and it was reckoned.”
This root holds thought and accounting together: “counted” is an act of appraisal that assigns the deed a place. The same root frames Abram’s trust as reckoned righteousness in Genesis 15:6.
ALSO GROWS
machashavah: Thought, plan
מַחֲשָׁבָה
The root can describe what is formed in thought as well as what is entered into an account, giving “counted” the sense of considered appraisal.
cheshbon: Account, calculation
חֶשְׁבּוֹן
This branch makes the accounting sense concrete: the deed is entered as alignment.
לִצְדָקָה
litsedaqah
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
Rightness, justice, alignment; here, “as righteousness.”
English can make “righteousness” sound like a moral score someone possesses; this root also carries rightness, justice, and alignment. The verse joins that claim about right order to an act of reckoning.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Justice, rightness
צֶדֶק
It shows that righteousness here belongs to a wider language of what is right or just.
tsaddiq: A just or righteous person
צַדִּיק
This branch names the person in terms of the same root’s rightness, echoing the verse’s reckoning of the deed to Phinehas.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly describes a response as righteousness by reckoning it so, preserving that accounting as a witness.
And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.THE THREAD
And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.Both verses use the Hebrew root חשב (ḥashav, reckon) with צדקה (tsedaqah, righteousness). The same reckoning formula is attached to Abram’s trust there and Phinehas’s killing here, bringing two sharply different acts under the same words.
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