What Does Psalm 147:17 Mean in the King James?
He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?
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 ice arrives in morsels, but its cold carries a force no one can stand against.
THE MEANING
You meet forces that dwarf your ability to resist; the verse holds their small visible pieces beside the cold they carry. What arrives in fragments can still overwhelm the one facing it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a force is only as great as the size of what you can see.
THE ROOT
יַעֲמֹד
yaʿamod
GROWS FROM
עמד
ʿ-m-d
Stand, remain, or take a position.
“stand” in this verse is yaʿamod. The root reaches beyond a body’s posture: it asks whether anything can remain in its place. Before this cold, the question is whether anything can hold its ground.
ALSO GROWS
ʿammud: Pillar or column
עַמּוּד
A pillar is something that stands and holds its place, giving the verse’s question about standing the sense of endurance.
heʿemid: Set upright, establish, or make stand
הֶעֱמִיד
This causative form shows the root can mean establishing something in a standing position, not only being upright.
ʿomed: One standing; standing
עוֹמֵד
This participle describes the one whose ability to remain standing is tested by the cold.
THE PATTERN
The forces that overwhelm human strength remain within God’s command.
By the breath of God frost is given: and the breadth of the waters is straitened.Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!THE THREAD
But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap:Both verses use עמד (ʿ-m-d), “stand” or “remain,” to ask what can hold its place before an overwhelming force. Psalm 147 sets the question before the cold; Malachi sets it before a refiner’s fire.
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