What Does Psalm 18:7 Mean in the King James?
Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.
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 Hebrew brackets the verse with the same verb for the earth surging and the hills convulsing, making the whole landscape one upheaval.
THE MEANING
The ground beneath you shakes, and what seems to hold it steady moves too. The verse names this upheaval as the force of God’s anger; its violence reaches into the foundations themselves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief this verse undoes is that what is foundational must be immovable.
THE ROOT
וַתִּגְעַשׁ
vattigʿash
GROWS FROM
געש
געש (gaʿash): to surge, quake, or convulse.
The opening word וַתִּגְעַשׁ is answered at the end by וַיִּתְגָּעֲשׁוּ: Hebrew frames the verse with one root, even as English uses both “shook” and “shaken.” That bracket makes the hills’ movement the completion of the earth’s upheaval.
ALSO GROWS
gaʿash: to surge or quake
גָּעַשׁ
This is the root’s basic verb, carrying the force of an upheaval rising through the earth.
vayyitgaʿashu: and they convulsed or were shaken
וַיִּתְגָּעֲשׁוּ
The same root returns at the verse’s close for the hills, joining their convulsion to the earth’s.
וַתִּרְעַשׁ
vattirʿash
GROWS FROM
רעש
רעש (raʿash): to quake, tremble, or make a tumult.
The root of “trembled” also names an earthquake and its tumult. English gives a brief action verb; Hebrew holds the full-scale upheaval and its commotion within the same root.
ALSO GROWS
raʿash: earthquake, tumult, or noise
רַעַשׁ
This noun makes the scale of the trembling explicit: the root can name the earthquake itself.
hirʿish: to cause to quake or make a commotion
הִרְעִישׁ
This causative form keeps the physical shaking and the disturbance it creates within the same consonants.
יִרְגָּזוּ
yirgazu
GROWS FROM
רגז
רגז (ragaz): to quake, tremble, or become agitated.
The word translated “moved” can also describe trembling or agitation. The hills are not merely shifted elsewhere; the verse pictures their stability convulsed.
ALSO GROWS
ragaz: to quake, tremble, or be agitated
רָגַז
This verb shows that the hills’ movement carries the force of a shuddering upheaval.
rogez: agitation or turmoil
רֹגֶז
The related noun names a state of disturbance, deepening the sense of the hills being thrown out of composure.
THE PATTERN
When divine power enters a scene, what appears fixed can shake.
And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.THE THREAD
And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:The Hebrew root רעש appears here as “trembled” and in 1 Kings as “earthquake,” naming the upheaval at two scales. The connection also preserves a striking distinction: 1 Kings says the LORD is not in that earthquake.
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