What Does Psalm 119:158 Mean in the King James?
I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word.
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 Hebrew calls them betrayers, so the grief is over a breach of trust: what is spoken is left unguarded.
THE MEANING
You see people abandon what has been entrusted to their keeping, and the sight grieves you. Their failure to guard the word is not treated as harmless or invisible; its neglect is felt.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that disregard for the spoken word has no consequence: here, its neglect becomes visible as grief.
THE ROOT
בֹּגְדִים
bogdim
GROWS FROM
בגד
To act treacherously, to betray trust.
“transgressors” in this verse is bogdim. The Hebrew points to betrayal rather than a generic violation. That makes the grief relational: what is entrusted to people’s keeping is treated as though it can be abandoned.
ALSO GROWS
bagad: To deal treacherously; to betray.
בָּגַד
This verb names the breach of trust beneath the verse’s English word “transgressors.”
begidah: Betrayal; treachery.
בְּגִידָה
This noun makes the relational fracture explicit: the failure is experienced as betrayal.
שָׁמְרוּ
shamru
GROWS FROM
שמר
To guard, watch over, preserve.
“kept not” in this verse is shamru. The English “kept” can sound like mere compliance, but the Hebrew carries the image of guarding and watching. The verse says the word is left unguarded, making the neglect a breach of care as well as action.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: A watchman; a guardian.
שֹׁמֵר
A watchman keeps watch; this branch brings out the vigilance contained in “kept.”
mishmeret: A charge, duty, or guard.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
A mishmeret is something entrusted to someone’s keeping, echoing the responsibility implied by the verse.
THE PATTERN
When what is entrusted to people is violated, seeing it can move the witness to grief rather than indifference.
And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:THE THREAD
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.“Keep” in Genesis 2:15 is the same Hebrew root שָׁמַר (shamar, guard or watch over) used in this verse. The word entrusted to care here is the garden; in Psalm 119, it is the spoken word.
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