What Does Psalm 22:18 Mean in the King James?
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
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 lot completes the stripping: Hebrew pictures them making the lot fall over the vesture, turning the last covering into an assigned share.
THE MEANING
You hear dispossession at the point where it becomes complete: others divide the garments, then cast lots over the vesture. The chance procedure distributes the speaker’s covering without removing the violence of its seizure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an allocation becomes just because the procedure is impartial; the lot distributes what was taken while the speaker remains exposed.
THE ROOT
יַפִּילוּ
yappîlû
GROWS FROM
נפל
To fall; in this verb form, to cause to fall or drop.
“cast” in this verse is yappîlû. The Hebrew pictures the lot being made to fall, making chance a physical action over the vesture. The allocation arrives as a fall, not an abstract decision.
ALSO GROWS
nāphal: To fall
נָפַל
The shared root makes the lot’s fall part of the verse’s concrete action.
hippîl: To cause to fall; to drop
הִפִּיל
This causative form clarifies the force of “they cast”: they make the lot fall.
יְחַלְּקוּ
yəḥalləqû
GROWS FROM
חלק
To divide or apportion.
“part” in this verse is yəḥalləqû. The verb of dividing shares its root with the word for a portion. The garments do not simply disappear; they become portions held by others.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēleq: A portion or share
חֵלֶק
The garment becomes a share distributed among the people taking it.
maḥălōqet: Division; dispute
מַחֲלֹקֶת
This branch shows how division can name both the act of separating and the division it leaves between people.
בְּגָדַי
begāday
GROWS FROM
בגד
b-g-d
The same consonants form a word for clothing and a verb for treacherous dealing.
The consonants in “garments” echo בָּגַד (bāgad, to deal treacherously). As the speaker’s covering is seized, that sound-link gives the physical division an edge of betrayal.
ALSO GROWS
beged: Garment or clothing
בֶּגֶד
This is the word for the covering being divided.
bāgad: To deal treacherously; to betray
בָּגַד
Its consonants echo within the garment word as the speaker’s covering is taken.
THE PATTERN
Casting a lot turns an uncertain claim into a visible allocation, while the result carries the full weight of what is being assigned.
The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.THE THREAD
The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD.Both verses use גּוֹרָל (gōrāl, lot): in this verse it assigns the speaker’s vesture, and in Proverbs it falls into the lap. The shared word holds the visible allocation beside a larger judgment, without making the seizure any less violent.
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