What Does Psalm 119:61 Mean in the King James?
The bands of the wicked have robbed me: but I have not forgotten thy law.
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 cords can seize your circumstances without seizing the instruction you remember.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks into the moment when pressure or injustice closes around you. The cords are real, yet they do not erase the LORD’s instruction from your memory; what guides you remains present even while something is taken or bound.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being bound or robbed means the instruction within you has already been taken too.
THE ROOT
חֶבְלֵי
ḥevlē
GROWS FROM
חבל
חבל (ḥ-b-l; ḥāval): to bind; the related noun names a cord or line.
“bands” in this verse is ḥevlē. The Hebrew word names cords, so the verse gives the pressure a physical image of binding. The same word family also names a measuring line and the portion it marks out: the cords close around the speaker, but the instruction he remembers remains.
ALSO GROWS
ḥevel: Cord, rope, or measuring line; also a portion measured out by a line.
חֶבֶל
This branch holds binding and boundaries together, illuminating how the cords can constrict the speaker’s space.
ḥāval: To bind or take as a pledge.
חָבַל
The verb makes the binding active: the wicked do not merely surround the speaker but exert a claim over him.
שָׁכָחְתִּי
shākhāḥtî
GROWS FROM
שכח
שכח (sh-kh-ḥ; shākhakh): to forget.
The speaker’s “not forgotten” stands beside the cords rather than after them: pressure is present, but erasure is not. The verse holds both truths at once, the binding is real, and the instruction remains in memory.
ALSO GROWS
shikhḥāh: Forgetfulness.
שִׁכְחָה
This noun names the erasure that the speaker says has not happened.
nishkāḥ: Forgotten or overlooked.
נִשְׁכָּח
This form describes what can disappear from awareness; here the instruction has not become forgotten, even under pressure.
THE PATTERN
External force can bind or dispossess a person without erasing the remembrance that still gives direction.
All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant.Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.THE THREAD
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.Psalm 18:4 uses חֶבְלֵי מָוֶת (ḥevlē māvet, cords of death), from the same root as the “bands” here, though the KJV renders them “sorrows.” The shared image lets grief and restraint touch: both can tighten around a person, while remembrance remains.
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