What Does Psalm 147:20 Mean in the King James?
He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye 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 dividing line is knowing: God’s judgments are disclosed as something a people can recognize, not only decrees handed down.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the reader before a distinction: the LORD’s judgments are known among Israel, while the nations are said not to know them. Here, judgment is something made known and understood, not merely a sentence that falls from above. “Praise ye the LORD” gives that disclosure its response.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that divine judgment means only punishment: these judgments are also something disclosed and made knowable.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁפָּטִים
mishpatim
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge, decide, or render a ruling.
The verse does not present these as only penalties. Mishpat can name a ruling or an act of justice that orders what is right; alongside “known,” it depicts God’s judgments as something disclosed and understood. English “judgments” can sound like punishment alone, while the Hebrew word holds ruling, justice, and decision together.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: To judge or decide.
שָׁפַט
The verb behind mishpatim shows that these judgments are acts of deciding, not only outcomes imposed on someone.
shofet: A judge.
שֹׁפֵט
This branch names the one who discerns and decides, linking the judgments to an active source of justice.
mishpat: A judgment, ruling, or act of justice.
מִשְׁפָּט
The singular form shows the verse speaks of a body of judgments, a disclosed order rather than one isolated sentence.
יְדָעוּם
yeda’um from yada
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, recognize, or become acquainted with.
The verb means more than having information about something; yada can describe personal acquaintance and recognition. In this verse, the contrast centers on whether the LORD’s judgments are known and recognized, not simply whether rules exist.
ALSO GROWS
da’at: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root shows that knowing can name an understanding held, illuminating the verse’s claim that the nations lack this knowledge of the judgments.
yodea: One who knows or recognizes.
יֹדֵעַ
This form makes knowing an active relation to what is known, echoing the verse’s emphasis on recognition of the judgments.
THE PATTERN
A people is distinguished by the divine words and judgments made known to them.
And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.THE THREAD
He sheweth his word unto Jacob, his statutes and his judgments unto Israel.The same word-family for “judgments” appears just before this verse: first the LORD makes his word, statutes, and judgments known to Israel, then verse 20 says the nations have not known them. The root connects judging with a disclosed order that can be known.
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