What Does Psalm 107:28 Mean in the King James?
Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
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 names distress as a narrow place, then names the LORD’s answer as an exit.
THE MEANING
When your life narrows around you, your cry reaches the LORD. The pressure does not become your permanent boundary; the LORD brings you out from what constricts you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that distress is a closed space with no exit.
THE ROOT
בַּצַּר
ba-tsar
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
to bind, press in, or constrict
The Hebrew gives distress a shape: a narrow place that presses a person in. English “trouble” can sound abstract; this root lets the verse’s answer appear as release from confinement.
ALSO GROWS
tsarah: distress, trouble
צָרָה
This related word keeps the image of distress as being hemmed in.
metsar: a narrow place, a strait
מֵצַר
Psalm 118:5 uses this word for the place from which the speaker calls to the LORD.
יוֹצִיאֵם
yotsi’em
GROWS FROM
יָצָא
to go out or come forth; in this form, to bring someone out
“bringeth them out” in this verse is yotsi’em. The verb pictures an actual exit from the place that confines them. Deliverance here is movement out of distress, not merely comfort while remaining inside it.
ALSO GROWS
yetsi’ah: going out, an exit
יְצִיאָה
This noun makes the movement in the verse concrete: the LORD brings them to the outside.
yetzi’at Mitzrayim: the going out from Mitzrayim (Egypt, the two narrows)
יְצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם
The same verb family names the foundational movement out of constriction and bondage.
THE PATTERN
When distress closes in, a cry can be met with the LORD’s answer that brings a person out.
The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.And when Peter was come to himself, he said, Now I know of a surety, that the Lord hath sent his angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from all the expectation of the people of the Jews.THE THREAD
I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.The Hebrew phrase מִן־הַמֵּצַר (min hametsar, “from the narrow place”) shares the צר (tsar, “narrow”) word family behind בַּצַּר (ba-tsar, “in the narrow place”) in this verse. Psalm 118:5 makes the movement explicit: the cry is answered by being set in a broad place.
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