What Does Psalm 16:4 Mean in the King James?
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
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 word for “sorrows” shares its consonants with a Hebrew word for “idols,” making the verse’s pain and its rival gods echo in the same sound.
THE MEANING
When trust hastens toward a rival god, grief multiplies. The speaker refuses both the blood libations and the act of carrying those gods’ names on the lips: what receives an offering and what receives a voice both reveal allegiance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that pursuing a rival god carries no cost; the verse names multiplied sorrow as its fruit.
THE ROOT
עַצְּבוֹתָם
ʿaṣṣəvōṯām
GROWS FROM
עצב
Pain, grief, and painful toil.
“sorrows” in this verse is ʿaṣṣəvōṯām. The grief word shares consonants with עֲצַבִּים (ʿaṣabbîm, “idols” or “images”) in Psalm 115:4, though whether the words share a historical root is uncertain. Their sound-link lets the verse’s multiplied pain ring beside the rival objects of worship.
ALSO GROWS
ʿiṣṣāḇōn: Painful toil or hardship.
עִצָּבוֹן
This branch shows grief as lived strain, not merely a passing feeling.
ʿāṣaḇ: To grieve or cause pain.
עָצַב
The verb gives the verse’s “sorrows” an active edge: this is pain that grows.
אַסִּיךְ
ʾassîḵ
GROWS FROM
נסך
To pour out, especially a libation; also to cast or pour metal.
“offer / drink offerings” in this verse is ʾassîḵ. The Hebrew line uses this root for both “offer” and “drink offerings”: the speaker refuses the act of pouring blood as devotion to another god. The same root also appears in a word for a cast image, linking the poured offering and the fashioned object without making them the same act.
ALSO GROWS
nāsaḵ: To pour out or pour a libation.
נָסַךְ
The repeated root makes the refusal concrete: the speaker will not perform the pouring.
massēḵāh: A cast or molten image.
מַסֵּכָה
This branch brings the root’s pouring or casting action near the making of an object that receives worship.
מָהָרוּ
māhărū
GROWS FROM
מהר
To hurry or be quick.
“hasten” in this verse is māhărū. The verse describes more than holding an idea about another god: people hurry after it. That urgency gives the pursuit a direction and pace, set beside the grief that multiplies.
ALSO GROWS
mahēr: Hurry; do quickly.
מַהֵר
This form keeps the force of speed in the verse’s description of pursuit.
məhērāh: Quickly or speedily.
מְהֵרָה
The adverbial branch shows how the root carries urgency across different forms.
THE PATTERN
When trust is given to a rival or made power, grief deepens and the worshipper begins to resemble what receives that trust.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.THE THREAD
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.Psalm 16:4 uses עַצְּבוֹתָם (ʿaṣṣəvōṯām, “their sorrows”), while Psalm 115:4 uses עֲצַבִּים (ʿaṣabbîm, “idols” or “images”); the words share the consonants ע־צ־ב (ʿ-ṣ-b), though their historical relationship is uncertain. Psalm 115:8 adds a mechanism: trust makes the worshipper like what is trusted, placing this verse’s multiplying grief beside the rival object’s incapacity.
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