What Does Psalm 44:20 Mean in the King James?
If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;
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
Forgetting God’s name and spreading your hands to another god are linked ruptures: losing sight of God’s nature and giving your allegiance elsewhere.
THE MEANING
This verse names two linked forms of estrangement: forgetting the nature of God and extending the hands toward a foreign god. The hands make inward forgetting visible as outward allegiance. The verse places the reader’s present orientation toward God under examination.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
God’s name is only a label, so forgetting what it means has no bearing on where my allegiance goes.
THE ROOT
שֵׁם
shem
GROWS FROM
שם
Name, identity, or reputation; here, the nature known through the name.
The verse’s “name” carries more than a spoken label: it holds the nature by which God is recognized. To forget the name is to lose sight of that nature, while the hands reveal where allegiance is being placed.
ALSO GROWS
shemot: names
שְׁמוֹת
This plural form names the book of Exodus in Hebrew; it keeps the focus on names as carriers of identity.
shimkha: your name
שִׁמְךָ
This possessive form shows the same noun at work when a name belongs to someone; here, the name belongs to God and expresses God’s nature.
וַנִּפְרֹשׂ
vannifros
GROWS FROM
פרשׂ
paras
To spread, unfold, or extend.
“stretched out” in this verse is vannifros. The Hebrew pictures palms being spread open, making allegiance visible through the body’s direction. The same verb describes hands extended toward God, so the decisive difference is where the hands reach.
ALSO GROWS
parashti: I have spread
פָּרַשְׂתִּי
In Psalm 143:6, the speaker spreads the palms toward God; the same movement here points toward a foreign god.
efros: I will spread
אֶפְרֹשׂ
In Exodus 9:29, Moses says he will spread his hands to the LORD, showing the verb used for a bodily appeal directed toward God.
שָׁכַחְנוּ
shakachnu
GROWS FROM
שׁכח
shakach
To forget, lose from awareness, or fail to keep in mind.
“forgotten” in this verse is shakachnu. The verse pairs forgetting with the hands’ outward turn: what falls from awareness can show up in the direction of allegiance. Forgetting God’s name is therefore not a lapse in reciting a word; it is a loss of recognition of God’s nature.
ALSO GROWS
shakachnu: we have forgotten
שָׁכַחְנוּ
This is the verse’s own form of the root, joining the speaker to the question of whether God’s nature remains present to awareness.
yishakach: will be forgotten
יִשָּׁכֵחַ
Psalm 9:18 uses this form for the needy not being forgotten; the root can describe what slips from someone’s awareness.
THE PATTERN
Remembering God’s name means keeping God’s nature in view, and the direction of prayer and trust reveals that allegiance.
And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.THE THREAD
I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Selah.The same Hebrew verb for spreading the palms appears here, but the hands are extended toward God. That shared root makes the verse’s question tangible: the direction of the hands reveals the direction of allegiance.
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