What Does Psalm 144:14 Mean in the King James?
That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets.
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 measures flourishing not by weightlessness, but by the capacity to bear real work without rupture or cries of distress.
THE MEANING
Your flourishing is pictured in work that can be carried, with no breach opening and no cry of distress filling the streets. The oxen are strong to labor, so wholeness here does not mean life without weight; it means life able to bear its work while public life remains intact.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a whole life must be an unburdened life: its oxen are strong to labor, while rupture and public distress are absent.
THE ROOT
מְסֻבָּלִים
mesubbalim
GROWS FROM
סבל
to carry or bear a load
The Hebrew מְסֻבָּלִים (mesubbalim, burden-bearing or loaded) makes strength concrete as the capacity to carry. The English phrase “strong to labour” holds that strength; the root adds the image of bearing weight.
ALSO GROWS
sebel: burden or load
סֵבֶל
The same seed names what the oxen can carry, so their strength appears as capacity under weight.
sabbal: burden-bearer or porter
סַבָּל
This branch names the bearer itself, echoing the verse’s picture of work sustained by those able to carry.
פֶּרֶץ
perets
GROWS FROM
פרץ
to break through or burst out
“breaking in” in this verse is perets. A breach is not merely damage; it is a break-through that opens what had been held together. The verse places this rupture beside burden-bearing and street cries, making communal wholeness visible in what does not break open.
ALSO GROWS
parats: to break through or burst forth
פָּרַץ
The verb shows the force inside “breach”: a boundary gives way.
perets: breach or break-through
פֶּרֶץ
Isaiah’s “repairer of the breach” uses this same noun, showing that the rupture named here can also be repaired.
THE PATTERN
A flourishing community can bear its work while its shared spaces remain free of rupture and distress.
And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.THE THREAD
And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.The same root, סבל (sabal, to bear a load), appears in Isaiah’s promise, “I will bear.” Psalm 144 pictures oxen able to carry their work; Isaiah turns that image toward God as the one who bears the reader.
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