What Does Psalm 44:5 Mean in the King James?
Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
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 force that tramples opposition comes through God’s name, God’s nature, not through a name spoken as a formula.
THE MEANING
The verse places the reader within a “we” that meets those who rise against it with force received through God. “Through thy name” locates that force in God’s nature. The image stays physical and severe: the community pushes down its enemies and treads them underfoot.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that resistance is met by human strength alone: it says the force comes through God. It also presents God’s name as nature, not merely a spoken label.
THE ROOT
נְנַגֵּחַ
nenaggeach
GROWS FROM
נגח
To gore or drive with the force of horns.
The verb translated “push down” carries the force of a horned attack: to gore and drive into what stands against you. English leaves that physical force less visible, while the Hebrew connects this victory to the image of an animal’s horns.
ALSO GROWS
yenaggaḥ: He shall gore or push with horns.
יְנַגַּח
Deuteronomy 33:17 uses this form for the horns that push the peoples, making the verse’s force concrete.
yiggāḥ: It gores; an ox gores.
יִגָּח
In Exodus 21:28, the same root names the direct violence of an ox striking with its horns.
צָרֵינוּ
tsarēnû
GROWS FROM
צרר
To bind, press, or hem in; צַר (ṣar) means adversary and also narrow or constricted.
The word for “our enemies” belongs to a word-family of pressing and constriction. The verse sets that constriction against action through God’s nature: the adversary’s grip is met by a force that breaks through it.
ALSO GROWS
ṣar: An adversary; also narrow or constricted.
צַר
The shared word-shape links an enemy with the experience of being pressed into narrowness.
ṣārāh: Distress or trouble.
צָרָה
This branch names the constriction an adversary brings, showing how the verse’s conflict presses on the community.
THE PATTERN
The strength that meets opposition is received through God, while the text keeps the force of overcoming visible.
His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.THE THREAD
His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.The horn image makes Psalm 44’s verb more concrete: its “push down” carries the force of goring horns. Deuteronomy uses the same root, connecting that physical force to a people acting through God’s nature.
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