What Does Psalm 119:121 Mean in the King James?
I have done judgment and justice: leave me not to mine oppressors.
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
Justice does not make you invulnerable: the verse holds a life aligned with what is right beside a plea for shelter from those who exploit.
THE MEANING
You name the justice you have practiced, and the danger of being left in the hands of exploiters remains real. The verse holds integrity and vulnerability together: a just life does not make you immune to another person’s power.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that acting rightly means you cannot be vulnerable or need protection.
THE ROOT
עֹשְׁקָי
ʿōšeqay
GROWS FROM
עשק
To oppress, defraud, or exploit through wrongful pressure or withholding.
“oppressors” in this verse is ʿōšeqay. This word names more than disagreement: it describes someone using power to squeeze or defraud another. Its root also forms the word for oppression, making the threat in the verse concrete: exploitation can reach the person who has acted justly.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōšeq: oppression, extortion
עֹשֶׁק
This noun names the exploitative pressure the speaker fears being left under.
ʿāšûq: oppressed, defrauded
עָשׁוּק
This branch describes the condition of the person on the receiving end of the oppressor’s power.
מִשְׁפָּט
mishpat
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge, decide, or govern a matter.
Mishpat carries the work of making a decision and ordering a matter fairly, not only an inward sense of fairness. Beside the threat of exploiters, it makes the speaker’s claim concrete: judgment concerns how power treats a person.
ALSO GROWS
shāphaṭ: to judge or decide
שָׁפַט
The verb shows that judgment is an act carried out, matching the speaker’s claim, “I have done.”
shōphēṭ: judge, one who adjudicates
שֹׁפֵט
This branch points to the person responsible for rendering judgment where power and fairness meet.
צֶדֶק
tsedeq
GROWS FROM
צדק
ts-d-q
Rightness or justice; alignment with what is right.
“justice” in this verse is tsedeq. Tsedeq reaches beyond a verdict to the state of being aligned with what is right. Paired with mishpat, it joins fair decisions to a life and order shaped by right relation.
ALSO GROWS
tsaddiq: just, one aligned with what is right
צַדִּיק
This branch describes a person characterized by the rightness the speaker says they have practiced.
tsedaqah: justice, right conduct
צְדָקָה
This branch carries rightness into action, echoing the speaker’s claim that justice has been done.
THE PATTERN
Justice is both a way of living and a claim for protection when people use power to exploit.
Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?THE THREAD
If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.Ecclesiastes repeats עָשַׁק (ʿāšaq, oppress or defraud), alongside מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, judgment) and צֶדֶק (tsedeq, justice or alignment). Those shared roots bind the plea for protection to the same fracture Ecclesiastes names: oppression thrives where judgment and justice are bent.
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