What Does Psalm 106:39 Mean in the King James?
Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a whoring with their own inventions.
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 Hebrew calls what the KJV renders “inventions” their practices, linking self-made conduct to the defilement and unfaithfulness it produces.
THE MEANING
This verse names a live pattern: your own actions can leave you defiled, and the practices you devise can turn into unfaithfulness. It holds the two together; the stain and the betrayal are carried in what you do.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what comes from you is automatically safe: the verse locates the defilement in your own actions and practices.
THE ROOT
וַיִּזְנוּ
vayiznu
GROWS FROM
זנה
To commit sexual unfaithfulness, to play the whore.
“went a whoring” in this verse is vayiznu. The Hebrew keeps the verse’s deliberately sexual image of betrayal: the people’s actions are described as unfaithfulness, not merely as a mistake. The same root appears in words for a prostitute and for whoredoms, holding the act and its pattern together.
ALSO GROWS
zonah: A prostitute; a woman who commits sexual unfaithfulness.
זֹנָה
This branch keeps the sexual force of the verse’s image visible.
zenunim: Whoredoms; repeated acts of sexual unfaithfulness.
זְנוּנִים
It shows how the root can name not only an act but a recurring pattern of betrayal.
בְּמַעֲשֵׂיהֶם
bema'aseihem
GROWS FROM
עשה
To do or make.
The Hebrew places “their works” beside מַעֲלָלֵיהֶם (ma’alaleihem, their practices or deeds), the word the KJV renders “their inventions.” These are two expressions of their own doing, linked in the verse to defilement and unfaithfulness.
ALSO GROWS
asah: To do or make.
עָשָׂה
The verb names the action from which the word for “works” is formed.
ma'aseh: A deed, work, or action.
מַעֲשֶׂה
It shows that “works” names what is done, not just an idea held privately.
THE PATTERN
Self-made practices can become the vehicle by which allegiance turns into unfaithfulness.
My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.THE THREAD
My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.The verb translated “went a whoring” in the Psalm and “have gone a whoring” in Hosea comes from זנה (zanah, to commit sexual unfaithfulness). Hosea links that unfaithfulness to the people’s chosen counsel; the Psalm names the resulting defilement and betrayal as acts they themselves practice.
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