What Does Psalm 119:155 Mean in the King James?
Salvation is far from the wicked: for they seek not thy statutes.
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
Deliverance is far not by chance: the verse places its distance where the seeking of God’s instruction is absent.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now: deliverance stands far from the wicked, whose relation to God’s statutes is marked by not seeking them. It holds distance and cause together, linking deliverance to an active seeking of instruction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that deliverance is detached from seeking God’s instruction.
THE ROOT
יְשׁוּעָה
yeshuʿah
GROWS FROM
ישע
yashaʿ
Deliver, rescue; bring out of constraint into room.
“Salvation” in this verse is yeshuʿah. Yeshuʿah carries the movement of being brought out of constraint. Its root also forms the verb for delivering and the word for a deliverer, so the verse speaks of a living act of deliverance, not just a distant label.
ALSO GROWS
yashaʿ: Deliver, rescue
יָשַׁע
The verb makes the movement within the noun visible: deliverance is being brought out.
moshiaʿ: Deliverer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
The same root names the one who brings a person out, connecting deliverance with the one who acts to deliver.
דָּרְשׁוּ
darshu
GROWS FROM
דרש
darash
Seek, inquire, pursue.
Darash can mean to seek by inquiry, not merely to glance around. The verse names this active seeking as what is absent, joining the distance of deliverance to a refusal to inquire into God’s instruction.
ALSO GROWS
doresh: One who seeks or inquires
דֹּרֵשׁ
The seeker is described by the same root whose action the verse says is missing.
midrash: Interpretive study
מִדְרָשׁ
This branch carries seeking into sustained study, showing the depth of inquiry the root can hold.
חֻקֶּיךָ
chuqqekha
GROWS FROM
חקק
chaqaq
Engrave, inscribe, decree.
The word for statutes grows from a root associated with engraving and setting something down as a decree. The verse connects deliverance with seeking this marked-out instruction; its distance appears alongside the refusal to seek it.
ALSO GROWS
choq: Statute, decree
חֹק
This related word shows the instruction as something established and set down.
mechoqeq: Lawgiver, one who decrees
מְחֹקֵק
The same root can name the one who sets down the decree, linking the instruction to its source.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly links seeking God with finding nearness, provision, and an opened way.
The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing.Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:THE THREAD
I am thine, save me; for I have sought thy precepts.The paired roots are יָשַׁע (yashaʿ, deliver) and דָּרַשׁ (darash, seek). Here the speaker asks to be delivered and says, “I have sought”; verse 155 names the distance where that seeking is absent.
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