What Does Psalm 24:2 Mean in the King James?
For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
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 earth is pictured as firmly founded above waters that cannot provide a stable footing.
THE MEANING
The verse holds moving waters and settled ground in one image: the earth is founded and made firm over the seas and rivers. Its stability is received, even where everything beneath it seems to shift.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that anything resting above instability must itself remain unstable; the verse pictures the earth established over the waters.
THE ROOT
יְסָדָהּ
yesādāh
GROWS FROM
יסד
To lay a foundation, setting something at its base.
The verse uses the root of foundation-laying for the earth’s placement over the seas. The waters are still there, but they do not prevent the ground from being founded.
ALSO GROWS
yesod: Foundation or basis.
יְסוֹד
This noun makes the foundation in the verse something with a name of its own: the earth has a base beneath its apparent stability.
mosad: Foundation or established base.
מוֹסָד
This related word carries the sense of a base that has been set in place, echoing the verse’s image of the earth grounded over the waters.
יְכוֹנְנֶהָ
yekhōnənāh
GROWS FROM
כון
To be firm, prepared, or set in place.
“established” in this verse is yekhōnənāh. This root adds firmness to the act of founding: the earth is not only placed, but made secure. Its branches can describe both a settled place and the base that supports it.
ALSO GROWS
makon: A fixed place or dwelling.
מָכוֹן
The root’s sense of settled placement opens the verse’s image beyond a foundation: the earth is made a place where life can dwell.
mekhonah: A stand or base.
מְכוֹנָה
This branch names a supporting base, reinforcing the verse’s paired picture of the earth founded and held in place.
THE PATTERN
The world’s stability is established and sustained even where waters make the ground seem uncertain.
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.THE THREAD
Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever.Psalm 24:2 and Psalm 104:5 share יסד (yasad), the root of laying a foundation. The second verse makes explicit what the first implies: the earth’s foundation holds it in place.
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