What Does Psalm 119:106 Mean in the King James?
I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments.
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 vow becomes a watch over God’s judgments: its substance is sustained attention to the aligned order they carry.
THE MEANING
Your vow is a present commitment whose life is in guarding God’s judgments. You hold them in view as an ordering that keeps life aligned, and the promise takes shape in sustained attention.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a spoken vow completes itself: the verse joins swearing to carrying it out and continuing to guard what was pledged.
THE ROOT
לִשְׁמֹר
lishmor
GROWS FROM
שמר
To guard, watch over, keep.
“keep” in this verse is lishmor. The verb carries the sense of guarding and watching over: the speaker’s vow places God’s judgments under active care. A pledge is pictured as sustained watchfulness, living beyond the moment it is spoken.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Watchman, keeper.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch makes the keeping in the verse a posture of watchfulness over what is entrusted.
mishmeret: Guard duty, charge, observance.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
The vow carries the weight of an entrusted responsibility, not only a spoken promise.
צִדְקֶךָ
tsidqecha
GROWS FROM
צדק
To be right or just; alignment.
The root gives “righteous” the texture of alignment: the judgments express an order true to God’s character. Beside shamar, the vow is watchfulness over an aligned way of ordering life.
ALSO GROWS
tsedeq: Rightness, justice, alignment.
צֶדֶק
This branch brings out the aligned order carried by the judgments the speaker vows to keep.
tsaddiq: One who is just or aligned.
צַדִּיק
This branch shows alignment as something embodied in a person’s way of being, not only named as an abstract quality.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted is kept through active, continuing attention.
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee.If ye love me, keep my commandments.THE THREAD
The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.The same root behind “keep” appears twice as “preserve” here: the LORD is the one watching over you. The vow to guard God’s judgments sits inside a larger pattern in which the keeper is also kept.
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