What Does Psalm 119:172 Mean in the King James?
My tongue shall speak of thy word: for all thy commandments are righteousness.
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 tongue’s speech is already an answer: God’s utterance comes first, and the mouth gives it voice.
THE MEANING
Your tongue is an answering tongue: God’s utterance comes before the words you speak of it. The commandments are tzedek, alignment, so this speech gives voice to the order present in God’s instruction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that God’s commands are arbitrary restrictions: it names their whole shape as alignment.
THE ROOT
תַּעַן
taʿan
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
To answer or respond.
“shall speak” in this verse is taʿan. The verb rendered “speak” carries the sense of answering or responding. The tongue’s speech is pictured as a response to God’s utterance, which comes first.
ALSO GROWS
yaʿaneh: He answers or responds.
יַעֲנֶה
This verb form makes the answering sense of the tongue’s speech visible.
maʿaneh: An answer or response.
מַעֲנֶה
The same root gives a name to the response itself: speech can answer what it has heard.
אִמְרָתֶךָ
imratekha
GROWS FROM
אמר
ʾ-m-r
To say or utter.
The word here is an utterance from the root “say.” Paired with taʿan, the verse pictures the tongue answering what God has spoken.
ALSO GROWS
amar: To say or speak.
אָמַר
This verb is the seed of the utterance the tongue answers.
imrah: An utterance or saying.
אִמְרָה
The verse’s “word” belongs to this family of spoken sayings.
צֶדֶק
tzedek
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
To be right or just; alignment.
“righteousness” in this verse is tzedek. The verse calls every command tzedek: alignment, not merely an abstract moral label. The tongue answers an utterance whose commands embody a right order.
ALSO GROWS
tsaddiq: A just or righteous person.
צַדִּיק
Alignment takes visible form in a person described by this same root.
tzedakah: Righteousness or justice.
צְדָקָה
The branch shows this root’s rightness expressed in how people are treated.
THE PATTERN
The tongue gives voice to the instruction that has taken hold within it.
The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment.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.For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.THE THREAD
Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.The same צדק (tzedek) root underlies “righteousness” in both verses. Here every command is alignment; there, that same alignment is described as enduring and truth-bearing.
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