What Does Psalm 25:19 Mean in the King James?
Consider mine enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred.
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 repeats one root for “hatred” and “hate,” then binds that hostility to violence.
THE MEANING
This verse gives language for opposition that is numerous and violently hostile. The speaker asks for that reality to be seen as it is, without making it smaller or kinder in the telling.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that naming hostility plainly means exaggerating it: the verse calls the hatred violent.
THE ROOT
שִׂנְאַת
sinʾat
GROWS FROM
שׂנא
ś-n-ʾ
To hate or regard with hostility.
The line pairs the noun שִׂנְאַת (sinʾat, hatred) with שְׂנֵאוּנִי (śəneʾuni, they hate me), both from שׂנא (ś-n-ʾ, hate). The word חָמָס (ḥāmās, violence or wrong) gives that hatred its brutal character.
ALSO GROWS
sinʾāh: Hatred
שִׂנְאָה
This noun form appears in the verse, where hatred is tied to violence.
śōnēʾ: One who hates; a hater
שֹׂנֵא
It makes the root’s hostility a description of the person who carries it.
śānēʾ: To hate
שָׂנֵא
This verb is repeated in the verse alongside the noun form, intensifying the hostility.
THE PATTERN
Hostility is brought into view by naming its scale and character plainly.
They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.The LORD therefore be judge, and judge between me and thee, and see, and plead my cause, and deliver me out of thine hand.But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.THE THREAD
They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.Psalm 69:4 uses the same root שׂנא (ś-n-ʾ, hate) and makes the scale visible: those who hate are “more than the hairs” of the speaker’s head. The shared root opens the current verse further by showing how numerous hostility can feel when it gathers around one person.
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