What Does Psalm 135:12 Mean in the King James?
And gave their land for an heritage, an heritage unto Israel his people.
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 doubled Hebrew word נַחֲלָה (naḥalah, inheritance) names a gift whose transfer is another people’s dispossession.
THE MEANING
You meet inheritance here as a gift with its cost visible: the preceding lines name peoples struck down before their land is given to Israel. The verse binds belonging to a place with a transfer of possession; “heritage” does not erase the violence in that transfer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that calling a possession a gift makes the way it changed hands disappear.
THE ROOT
נַחֲלָה
naḥalah
GROWS FROM
נחל
N-Ḥ-L
To inherit, receive, or take possession.
English “heritage” can sound like settled property; נַחֲלָה carries the movement of receiving possession from one who hands it on. The verse repeats the noun while naming that movement’s cost: the land is given to Israel after the surrounding lines say its peoples are struck down.
ALSO GROWS
naḥal: To inherit or take possession.
נָחַל
The verb shows the action inside “heritage”: what Israel receives becomes its possession.
hinḥil: To cause someone to inherit; to give as a possession.
הִנְחִיל
This causative form makes the giver part of the same root pattern: inheritance includes both receiving possession and transferring it.
THE PATTERN
Inheritance language presents belonging as a share received from another, while the surrounding story can reveal the cost of its transfer.
And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.THE THREAD
For the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.The same נחל (naḥal, inherit or possess) root lies beneath “heritage” here and “inheritance” there. The relation reverses: Israel receives land as its inheritance, while Israel itself is named as the LORD’s portion, belonging runs both ways.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us