What Does Psalm 144:15 Mean in the King James?
Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD.
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 same word, ashrei, flourishing, names both the people’s visible condition and the people whose God is the LORD.
THE MEANING
Flourishing reaches you here in two linked dimensions: the concrete conditions around a people and the LORD named as their God. The repeated word holds provision and belonging together, without reducing either to the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that flourishing can be measured only by outward conditions: the same word is spoken again over the people whose God is the LORD.
THE ROOT
אַשְׁרֵי
ashrei
GROWS FROM
אשר
ʾ-š-r
To be happy or flourish; the related verb can also mean to call someone fortunate.
“Happy” in this verse is ashrei. The verse repeats ashrei on either side of “yea,” so the second line names another ground for the same flourishing rather than replacing the first. In Genesis 30:13, the root shapes both Leah’s declaration and Asher’s name, speaking flourishing over a life and carrying it in a name.
ALSO GROWS
Asher: Asher, Leah’s son’s name, tied to happiness or good fortune.
אָשֵׁר
Leah names him after declaring her happiness, letting the root’s flourishing become part of a person’s name.
ashruni: They will call me happy or fortunate.
אַשְׁרוּנִי
In Genesis 30:13, Leah uses the same root for flourishing spoken by others, showing it can name both a state and its recognition.
THE PATTERN
Flourishing holds together the life people can see and their relation to God.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.THE THREAD
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.Both verses open with אַשְׁרֵי (ashrei), flourishing. Psalm 1 places that flourishing in the way a life takes; Psalm 144 also names it over the people whose God is the LORD.
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