What Does Psalm 119:13 Mean in the King James?
With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth.
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 word translated “declared” also means “recounted” and is rooted in the word for counting: the lips give each judgment its telling.
THE MEANING
What comes from God’s mouth is recounted through the reader’s own lips. The verse presents this as careful telling: each judgment is given voice, so what gives shape to right order is not left silent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that what comes from God’s mouth remains distant or silent; it can be carried forward in the reader’s speech.
THE ROOT
סִפַּרְתִּי
sipparti
GROWS FROM
ספר
to count, recount, tell
“declared” in this verse is sipparti. The Hebrew word סִפַּרְתִּי (sipparti, “I recounted”) carries the sense of telling and counting in the same root. The speaker’s lips do more than make a statement: they give the judgments an ordered, remembered telling.
ALSO GROWS
sefer: A written record or book.
סֵפֶר
A telling can also be preserved as a record, linking spoken recounting with what is kept and remembered.
mispar: A number or count.
מִסְפָּר
The same root can mark how many things there are, revealing the counting beneath the verse’s act of recounting.
מִשְׁפְּטֵי
mishpetei
GROWS FROM
שפט
to judge, decide, govern
The judgments are decisions that give shape to right order, not merely opinions. Joined to “thy mouth,” they arrive as words that can be spoken and carried forward.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: A judge, one who makes or delivers a judgment.
שֹׁפֵט
This branch shows the human agent connected to the act of judging named in the verse.
mishpat: A judgment, ruling, or just order.
מִשְׁפָּט
The verse’s “judgments” belong to this family of decisions that establish what is right.
THE PATTERN
Words received from God become spoken words carried forward through human lips.
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof.By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.THE THREAD
My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousness and thy salvation all the day; for I know not the numbers thereof.Psalm 71:15 uses the same root ספר (s-f-r; safar, “to count or recount”) for the mouth’s telling and for the “numbers” the speaker cannot know. The judgments in Psalm 119:13 can be recounted, while the full count of what God does remains beyond the speaker’s grasp.
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