What Does Psalm 126:6 Mean in the King James?
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
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
What the weeper carries is called seed, the same Hebrew word that also means offspring: grief carries the possibility of future life.
THE MEANING
Your grief and your sowing occupy the same passage; the tears do not cancel what you carry. The return is pictured as audible joy and gathered sheaves, holding present pain and future fullness in one living movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this dissolves is that tears prove nothing good can grow from what you carry.
THE ROOT
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow or scatter; also seed and offspring.
English can make seed sound like a thing merely carried; Hebrew joins the seed to the act of sowing and to offspring. What leaves the hand as seed is already named with the word for future life.
ALSO GROWS
zaraʿ: To sow or scatter seed.
זָרַע
The seed carried through tears is bound to the act of planting; the verse holds the painful passage and its future harvest together.
zeraʿ: Seed, descendants, or offspring.
זֶרַע
The word for what is carried also names what can come from it, placing future life inside the image of the seed.
רִנָּה
rinnah
GROWS FROM
רנן
r-n-n
To ring out, cry aloud, or sing.
The word translated “rejoicing” carries the sound of a cry or song, not only a feeling kept inside. The same word appears as “singing” earlier in this psalm, giving the harvest a voice.
ALSO GROWS
ranan: To raise a ringing cry or sing out.
רָנַן
The harvest’s joy is expressed aloud, as something that can be heard.
rinnah: A ringing cry, song, or shout of joy.
רִנָּה
Its use as “singing” in Psalm 126:2 links the returning harvest to the psalm’s earlier sound of joy.
THE PATTERN
What is planted into the ground can pass through apparent loss and return as fruit.
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.THE THREAD
Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.The word translated “singing” here is the same Hebrew word as “rejoicing” in verse 6: רִנָּה (rinnah, a ringing cry or song of joy). Verse 2 gives the returning harvest a sound, the mouth and tongue carry the joy verse 6 describes.
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