What Does Psalm 18:21 Mean in the King James?
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
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 verse makes loyalty a guarded path: keeping the LORD’s ways and remaining with God are one movement.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you now through a first-person confession: the LORD’s ways are kept as a lived path, and wicked action is a departure from your God. Conduct and closeness are held together in one line.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that closeness to God can be separated from the path you walk.
THE ROOT
שָׁמַרְתִּי
shamarti
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
sh-m-r
guard, keep watch, preserve
The keeping in “kept” carries the sense of guarding and watching. The LORD’s ways are held as a living path under attentive care, not merely remembered as an idea.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: watcher; one who guards
שׁוֹמֵר
The watcher branch shows the attention contained in keeping the LORD’s ways.
mishmeret: guard, charge, watch
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch makes keeping a responsibility of watchfulness that preserves what has been entrusted.
דַּרְכֵי
darkhei
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
tread, step along
“Ways” grows from the language of treading: a way is a course made real by steps. The verse’s loyalty is therefore visible in the direction of a lived path.
ALSO GROWS
darakh: to tread, step
דָּרַךְ
The verb gives the path its bodily sense: a way is what gets walked step by step.
derekh: road, path, way
דֶּרֶךְ
The noun names both a route and a manner of living, binding conduct to direction.
רָשַׁעְתִּי
rashaʿti
GROWS FROM
רשע
r-sh-ʿ
act wickedly, be culpable
“wickedly departed” in this verse is rashaʿti. The Hebrew verb here means “act wickedly,” followed by “from my God.” The phrasing binds moral rupture to relational distance: wickedness is presented as movement away from God.
ALSO GROWS
reshaʿ: wickedness, guilt
רֶשַׁע
This noun names the culpable quality carried by the verb in the verse.
rashaʿ: wicked, guilty person
רָשָׁע
The same root describes both the condition and the person marked by it.
THE PATTERN
Closeness to God becomes visible in a path guarded by attention and expressed through keeping God’s ways.
But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.If ye love me, keep my commandments.THE THREAD
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.The Hebrew behind “taking heed” comes from שׁמר (shamar), the same guard-and-watch root rendered “kept” here. The shared root reveals that keeping a way means watching its course in relation to the word.
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