What Does Psalm 46:3 Mean in the King James?
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. 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
Chaos does not stay at the edges of the world; here even the mountains shake.
THE MEANING
The turmoil around you can become so forceful that it seems to reach the mountains, the very things that signal permanence. The verse speaks the roar and shaking without shrinking either one. Its final Selah leaves the scene in a marked pause, allowing the instability to be seen plainly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whatever appears immovable must remain untouched: here even the mountains shake.
THE ROOT
יִרְעֲשׁוּ
yirʿashu
GROWS FROM
רעש
רעש (raʿash) means to quake, shake, or make a tumult.
“shake” in this verse is yirʿashu. The verb יִרְעֲשׁוּ comes from רעש, a root for quaking and tumult. The same consonants name the earth’s trembling elsewhere, so the mountains here are part of a scene where the ground itself is in motion.
ALSO GROWS
raʿash: Quake, shaking, or tumult.
רַעַשׁ
The noun shows that the verse’s verb belongs to a wider field of disturbance, not just a slight shift.
vatirʿash: And it shook or quaked.
וַתִּרְעַשׁ
Psalm 18:7 uses this form for the earth’s shaking, linking the mountains’ tremor here to the ground itself.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names instability plainly, then locates steadiness somewhere deeper than the landscape.
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.THE THREAD
Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.The Hebrew word translated shook in Psalm 18:7 comes from the same root, רעש. The shared consonants link the mountains trembling here with the earth itself quaking there, widening the image from one part of the landscape to the ground beneath it.
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