What Does Psalm 140:2 Mean in the King James?
Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; continually are they gathered together for war.
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 war here is first designed in the heart, then gathered into a shared force.
THE MEANING
The verse names a movement happening now: harmful intent forms within, then people gather around it until conflict becomes collective. What is hidden in the heart is already shaping what people do together. “Continually” shows this as repeated construction, not a single outburst.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that conflict begins only when people assemble or weapons appear; the verse locates its first formation in what the heart repeatedly devises.
THE ROOT
חָשְׁבוּ
chashvu
GROWS FROM
חשב
chashav
To reckon, think through, devise, or plan.
“imagine” in this verse is chashvu. The Hebrew word carries the sense of thought that reckons and plans, not merely a passing image. Its branches name both a plan and the one devising it, locating harm in formed intention before it becomes public warfare.
ALSO GROWS
machashavah: Thought, plan.
מַחֲשָׁבָה
This branch shows that what is imagined can take the shape of a plan.
choshev: One who thinks, calculates, or devises.
חֹשֵׁב
This branch makes the intention active: the heart is doing the work of devising harm.
THE PATTERN
Harm takes shape inwardly before it becomes a shared outward force.
Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord.For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.THE THREAD
But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.The same root, חשב (chashav, to devise), appears in both verses. Here it names harm planned in the heart; in Genesis it describes what is intended and what is meant for good, revealing how the direction of a formed intention matters.
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