What Does Psalm 4:4 Mean in the King James?
Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.
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 word rendered “stand in awe” is a tremble-word, so awe can include inner shaking without making that shaking the act that follows.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you in the moment you feel shaken: the tremor and the miss are not the same thing. On your bed, speech turns inward toward your heart, and what is stirred is held in quiet.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this dissolves is that being stirred makes wrongdoing inevitable.
THE ROOT
רִגְזוּ
rigzu
GROWS FROM
רגז
רגז (ragaz): tremble, quake, be agitated.
“Stand in awe; tremble” in this verse is rigzu. English “awe” can sound like a settled attitude; רִגְזוּ (rigzu, tremble or be agitated) carries movement, including the quiver of alarm or anger. The verse places that tremor alongside restraint, so the feeling itself is not the miss.
ALSO GROWS
ragaz: to tremble or be agitated
רָגַז
This verbal form makes the movement in “stand in awe” audible: the verse begins with a shaking, not a detached idea.
rogez: agitation, turmoil
רֹגֶז
The same consonants name the disturbance itself, placing awe within a wider field of trembling and agitation.
תֶּחֱטָאוּ
techta’u
GROWS FROM
חטא
חטא (chata): miss, fail to reach.
“sin” in this verse is techta’u. The verse separates being stirred from missing: agitation is present, but it need not become a miss. The root also names the miss itself, so the action is distinct from the tremor that precedes it.
ALSO GROWS
chet: a miss; missing
חֵטְא
This noun gives the root’s action a name, illuminating “sin not” as a boundary between the tremor and a miss.
chatta’t: a miss; an offering for the missing
חַטָּאת
The same root appears with a noun ending, linking the act of missing to the condition or matter named by the verse’s warning.
וְדֹמּוּ
vedommu
GROWS FROM
דמם
דמם (damam): be silent, become still.
“be still” in this verse is vedommu. The verse ends with a movement into quiet: the heart’s inward words do not have to keep the disturbance in motion. The same root carries both the act of becoming silent and the state of stillness.
ALSO GROWS
damam: to be silent or become still
דָּמַם
This verbal form shares the verse’s root and makes its final command a settling into quiet.
domem: silent, still
דּוֹמֵם
This related form describes the quiet state toward which the verse’s closing word points.
THE PATTERN
What is stirred can be held in inward speech and quiet before it becomes an outward act.
He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:THE THREAD
When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.Habakkuk uses the same root רגז (ragaz, tremble or be agitated) for a trembling belly, making the agitation concrete. Psalm 4:4 holds that tremor beside inward speech and stillness, showing the feeling and the next act as distinct.
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