What Does Psalm 122:2 Mean in the King James?
Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.
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 verse places your feet inside wholeness: you are already standing within Jerusalem’s gates.
THE MEANING
You are not only moving toward wholeness; your feet stand within its gates. The name Yerushalayim carries the sound of shalom, wholeness, and this verse makes arrival something your body can feel: you have footing inside.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that wholeness is always somewhere ahead of you loosens here: the verse places your feet within it.
THE ROOT
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
shin-lamed-mem
Wholeness, completeness, being whole.
“Jerusalem” in this verse is Yerushalayim. The English name can pass by without revealing its echo of shalom, wholeness. Your feet do not merely arrive at a place; the verse pictures them standing within the place whose name carries wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
It lets the city’s name resonate with the condition the verse pictures your feet inhabiting.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
It gives the destination a quality of completeness, not just a location.
עָמְדוּ
ʿāmedû
GROWS FROM
עמד
ayin-mem-dalet
To stand, remain, or take one’s place.
“stand” in this verse is ʿāmedû. The verse is not only about movement toward the city: the feet have taken their place inside. The root carries the sense of remaining on one’s footing, making arrival feel settled in the body.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāmad: To stand, remain.
עָמַד
This is the verb behind the feet’s presence within the gates.
ʿammûd: Pillar, column.
עַמּוּד
A pillar is something that stands; the branch echoes the verse’s image of firm footing.
שְׁעָרַיִךְ
sheʿārayikh
GROWS FROM
שער
shin-ayin-resh
Gate, entrance.
A gate is a threshold between outside and inside. Here the feet are already beyond that threshold, within the city’s gates.
ALSO GROWS
shaʿar: Gate, entrance.
שַׁעַר
It names the threshold the feet have crossed.
shoʿer: Gatekeeper, porter.
שׁוֹעֵר
The gate and its keeper belong to the same word-family, framing the entrance as a place of passage.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness is pictured as a place entered and inhabited, with its gates marking the passage from outside to inside.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.THE THREAD
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.Both verses use the Hebrew word shaʿar (שַׁעַר, gate). Psalm 100 pictures entering through the gates; Psalm 122 lets you feel the moment after crossing them, with your feet standing inside.
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