What Does Psalm 147:9 Mean in the King James?
He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.
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 young ravens’ call and their food belong to the same act of care: their need is not outside provision.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the call of dependent creatures and the food that sustains them in one present scene. Your own need belongs to this same reality of dependence; need itself is not proof that you are forgotten.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an audible need means care is absent.
THE ROOT
יִקְרָאוּ
yiqraʾu
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
To call out, name, or proclaim.
The Hebrew says the young ravens call; “cry” can make this sound like mere noise. The same root reaches into naming and public reading, opening the word toward an expressed call.
ALSO GROWS
qeriʾah: A calling out or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
The ravens’ cry is a call, an expressed voice rather than an unnamed sound.
miqraʾ: A reading or a gathered assembly.
מִקְרָא
This branch shows how the root of calling can also describe people called together to hear.
נֹתֵן
noten
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“giveth” in this verse is noten. The Hebrew presents giving as an active placement into creaturely life. The same root family holds giving and gift together, so provision is more than food arriving: it is something given.
ALSO GROWS
netinah: The act of giving.
נְתִינָה
The young ravens’ food appears as an ongoing act of giving.
mattanah: A gift.
מַתָּנָה
This branch opens the provision of food into the wider language of what is given.
THE PATTERN
The life of creatures is sustained through provision that meets need throughout creation.
These wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?THE THREAD
Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.Job names the direction of the young ravens’ cry: they cry unto God while searching for food. Psalm 147:9 holds the same scene in a single line, placing their call beside the giving of their food.
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