What Does Psalm 107:27 Mean in the King James?
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.
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 storm does not only unsteady their bodies; it swallows the wisdom they expected to guide them through it.
THE MEANING
When the waves overturn your footing, you can feel yourself circling without finding a direction. Even the wisdom you rely on can be swallowed by the force of what is happening; this verse names helplessness without dressing it up.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that skill guarantees control: a force can overwhelm even the judgment that normally guides you.
THE ROOT
תִּתְבַּלָּע
tibbāllaʿ
GROWS FROM
בלע
To swallow or engulf.
“at their wits’ end” in this verse is tibbāllaʿ. The Hebrew pictures their wisdom itself being swallowed, not merely their minds going blank. The storm consumes what they would normally use to find their way through it.
ALSO GROWS
bālaʿ: To swallow or engulf.
בָּלַע
The root makes their wisdom the thing the storm takes in.
wayyivlaʿ: And he swallowed up.
וַיִּבְלַע
The same root describes the great fish swallowing Jonah, extending this verse’s image of being overtaken by something beyond one’s power.
יָחוֹגּוּ
yāḥōgû
GROWS FROM
חוג
To move in a circle; to describe a circle.
“reel to and fro” in this verse is yāḥōgû. The verb gives their motion a circular quality: they are carried around without finding a steady course. Their bodies lose direction as their wisdom is swallowed.
ALSO GROWS
ḥûg: A circle.
חוּג
Isaiah uses this related word for the circle of the earth, showing the root’s connection to circular form.
meḥûgāh: A compass for drawing circles.
מְחוּגָה
This tool follows the same root’s circular motion; here, by contrast, the sailors are caught in a circling they cannot guide.
THE PATTERN
When forces exceed human command, even practiced skill and confidence can give way to helplessness.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them.And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.THE THREAD
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.The word translated “swallow up” shares the root בלע (balaʿ) with the swallowed wisdom in this psalm. One verse shows a storm consuming judgment; the other makes engulfment physical, carrying Jonah into the belly of the fish.
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