What Does Psalm 44:1 Mean in the King James?
To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, Maschil. We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old.
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
In Hebrew, the fathers’ telling is a counting out of deeds, keeping each act visible as it is passed on.
THE MEANING
You receive an account of deeds you did not witness firsthand through the voices that came before you. As their telling reaches your ears now, what they recount becomes a living part of your own memory.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that only what you witness firsthand can be truly known: what is recounted can also reach you as knowledge.
THE ROOT
סִפְּרוּ
sippĕrû
GROWS FROM
ס־פ־ר
s-p-r
count; recount; relate
The verb translated “told” comes from a root that can mean both counting and recounting. Hebrew lets the telling carry the sense of counting out the deeds again, preserving their particulars in memory.
ALSO GROWS
sefer: book, scroll
סֵפֶר
The same root’s branch for a book shows how a recounting can be carried beyond the voice that first spoke it.
mispar: number, count
מִסְפָּר
This branch keeps the root’s counting sense beside the fathers’ telling, suggesting a recounting of actual deeds rather than a vague impression.
THE PATTERN
God’s deeds become shared memory as one voice recounts them for another to hear.
And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son, what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the LORD.We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician upon Muthlabben, A Psalm of David. I will praise thee, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works.“Told” here and “shew forth” in Psalm 9:1 both draw on סָפַר (s-p-r), the root meaning count, recount, relate. What the speaker receives through the fathers’ recounting becomes something the speaker can recount in turn.
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