What Does Psalm 132:4 Mean in the King James?

I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids,

Psalm 132:4 · KJV

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

Sleep is not merely absent here; the speaker deliberately withholds it from himself.

THE MEANING

When a search feels unfinished, urgency reaches even the eyelids: sleep is something the speaker refuses himself. The verse holds that cost in plain bodily detail, with eyes kept awake and slumber withheld.

THE ROOT

אֶתֵּן

’etten

GROWS FROM

נתן

n-t-n

To give, set, or place.

The sentence does not say sleep simply fails to arrive: the verb makes it something the speaker chooses not to give. The same root also carries the sense of setting or placing, giving the refusal a deliberate quality.

ALSO GROWS

natan: To give, set, or place.

נָתַן

It is the root verb behind the speaker’s refusal to give sleep.

mattanah: Gift.

מַתָּנָה

This branch shows the giving in the verse as something bestowed or withheld.

שְׁנַת

shenat

GROWS FROM

ישן

y-sh-n

To sleep or be asleep; the same consonantal family also describes what is old.

English gives no hint that sleep shares its Hebrew consonants with a word for what is old. That echo adds a sense of dormancy to the sleep the speaker refuses himself.

ALSO GROWS

yashen: Asleep or sleeping.

יָשֵׁן

It is the state the speaker keeps himself from entering.

yashan: Old or ancient.

יָשָׁן

This branch preserves the Hebrew sound-link between sleep and what has grown old.

THE PATTERN

When something feels too urgent to set down, wakefulness becomes its bodily expression.

Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.

Proverbs 6:4 · KJVThe same refusal of sleep and slumber gives urgency a physical measure.

And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.

Luke 6:12 · KJVThe night passes in prayer, with wakefulness expressing the weight of what is being sought.

Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

Psalm 77:4 · KJVHere, distress keeps the eyes open and makes wakefulness the body’s expression of what cannot be set aside.

THE THREAD

Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids.

Proverbs 6:4 · KJV

Proverbs repeats the same Hebrew pair, sleep and slumber, and frames sleep with the same verb, “give.” The shared wording makes the refusal of rest a recognizable expression of urgency.

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