What Does Psalm 48:13 Mean in the King James?
Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following.
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 for “tell” also means “count”: what the heart has carefully taken stock of becomes an account for the next generation.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks through Zion’s walls and dwellings: what sustains a people is meant to be seen closely and carried forward. What the heart takes in becomes testimony when it is recounted for those who come next.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the assumption that what matters will survive simply because it was once seen.
THE ROOT
תְּסַפְּרוּ
tesapperu
GROWS FROM
ספר
To count, number, reckon, or recount.
“tell” in this verse is tesapperu. The verse’s word for telling carries the sense of counting and taking account, so the next generation receives what has first been attended to. The same root gives both a spoken account and a written record.
ALSO GROWS
saphar: To count or recount.
סָפַר
The act of telling Zion’s story carries the sense of taking stock of what has been seen.
sefer: A book or written record.
סֵפֶר
The same root turns an account into something held and read beyond the moment of seeing.
mispar: A number or count.
מִסְפָּר
This branch makes the root’s counting sense audible inside the word translated “tell.”
THE PATTERN
What is seen and received becomes a living inheritance when it is recounted to those who come next.
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.Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.THE THREAD
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.Exodus uses the same root ספר (saphar, to count or recount) for telling a son and grandson. Psalm 48 uses it for recounting what has been seen in Zion, showing the same verbal thread carry testimony into the next generation.
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