What Does Psalm 29:5 Mean in the King James?
The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars; yea, the LORD breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
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 LORD’s voice breaks what appears unbreakable.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s voice meets the strongest things in your world with force that breaks them. The verse repeats the fracture against Lebanon’s cedars, making clear that even what stands tall and firm can be broken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that whatever looks strongest is therefore unbreakable.
THE ROOT
שֹׁבֵר
shover
GROWS FROM
שבר
shavar
To break, shatter, or fracture.
“breaketh” in this verse is shover. The Hebrew repeats this root in the second clause, pressing the fracture against Lebanon’s cedars. The voice is not merely loud: it cracks what stands tall and firm.
ALSO GROWS
shever: Breakage, fracture.
שֶׁבֶר
The noun makes the root’s action visible as the break itself: the cedar’s strength gives way.
shavur: Broken, shattered.
שָׁבוּר
This related form names the state left by the breaking the verse describes.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s voice shakes or dissolves what seems fixed and powerful.
The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend.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 upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan,The same cedars of Lebanon appear here as an image of height and elevation. Psalm 29 shows the LORD’s voice breaking those towering trees, revealing that what stands high can still be brought low.
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