What Does Psalm 118:25 Mean in the King James?
Save now, I beseech thee, O LORD: O LORD, I beseech thee, send now prosperity.
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 plea holds two movements together: being delivered from constriction and having the way ahead open into success.
THE MEANING
This is the reader’s immediate cry from a narrowed place: be brought out, and let the road ahead open into movement. “Prosperity” translates a Hebrew verb asking that the way succeed; it does not specify wealth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that deliverance is only escape while prosperity is only material gain: the verse joins rescue and forward passage in one request.
THE ROOT
הוֹשִׁיעָה
hoshia
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
Deliver, rescue, bring into safety.
The root names being brought out into safety; here, “save” carries the movement from a narrowed place into release. Its branches name both deliverance itself and the one who delivers, keeping the act and its source connected.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: Deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
The plea for rescue shares its root with the word for deliverance itself.
moshia: Deliverer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
The same root names the one who brings someone out, linking the cry to its answer.
הַצְלִיחָה
hatslicha
GROWS FROM
צלח
ts-l-ḥ
Advance, break through, succeed.
“Prosperity” in this verse is hatslicha. The Hebrew form is a plea to make something advance or succeed; the word does not itself specify money. Beside “save,” it asks not only to be brought out, but for the way ahead to move.
ALSO GROWS
tsalach: Advance, succeed, prosper
צָלַח
This verb’s range shows why the plea reaches beyond material abundance to a way that can move forward.
matsliach: Succeeding, making something succeed
מַצְלִיחַ
This form keeps the root’s sense of movement toward success audible in the request.
THE PATTERN
The cry for deliverance can hold rescue and a way forward that succeeds in the same request.
The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.And he said unto me, The LORD, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and prosper thy way; and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my kindred, and of my father’s house:For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.THE THREAD
And he said unto me, The LORD, before whom I walk, will send his angel with thee, and prosper thy way; and thou shalt take a wife for my son of my kindred, and of my father’s house:“Prosper” in this verse comes from the same Hebrew root, צלח (tsalach), meaning advance or succeed, as “prosperity” in Psalm 118:25. The two verses connect the LORD’s sending with a way that moves forward.
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