What Does Psalm 118:13 Mean in the King James?
Thou hast thrust sore at me that I might fall: but the LORD helped me.
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 intensifies the shove, “pushing, you pushed me”, then answers that force with the LORD’s help.
THE MEANING
The shove against you is real and is aimed at your fall. Yet the verse holds the LORD’s help beside that pressure, so the threat is real without becoming the whole truth of your present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The pressure against you means your fall is inevitable. The verse places the LORD’s help in the same moment as the threat.
THE ROOT
דָּחֹה דְחִיתַנִי
dāḥōh dĕḥîtanî
GROWS FROM
דחה
to thrust, push away, or drive away
“thrust sore” in this verse is dāḥōh dĕḥîtanî. The first phrase uses an infinitive absolute beside the verb, intensifying the shove: the pressure is force aimed at your fall. This root also forms נִדְחֶה, “one driven away,” so the language of thrusting carries the sense of displacement before the verse answers it with help.
ALSO GROWS
dāḥōh: thrusting; an infinitive absolute form
דָּחֹה
Its pairing with the verb intensifies the force of the shove in this verse.
nidḥeh: driven away, rejected
נִדְחֶה
This form shows how the same root can name the state of being pushed aside.
עֲזָרָנִי
ʿăzārānî
GROWS FROM
עזר
to help or aid
“helped me” in this verse is ʿăzārānî. The verse ends with עזר, the same root behind עֵזֶר (“help, helper”) and עֶזְרָה (“assistance”). The word family gathers the ending around aid meeting the threatened fall: the help is the answer the verse sets against the shove.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēzer: help, helper
עֵזֶר
It shows the root naming aid itself and the one who gives it.
ʿezrāh: help, assistance
עֶזְרָה
This related form keeps the verse’s ending grounded in concrete aid.
THE PATTERN
Being pressed toward a fall does not decide the outcome when help meets the pressure.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;THE THREAD
Behold, God is mine helper: the Lord is with them that uphold my soul.Psalm 54:4 calls God עֹזֵר (ʿōzēr, “helper”), from the same root עזר as “helped” here. It opens the final clause as aid standing with someone under pressure, not as an abstract change in mood.
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