What Does Psalm 49:13 Mean in the King James?
This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. 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
A folly can outlive its maker when the next generation inherits its path and keeps praising its sayings.
THE MEANING
A way can remain folly even when those who come after it approve its sayings. What is repeated and welcomed in the mouth gains continuity, but not wisdom.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A way does not become wise simply because later generations approve it.
THE ROOT
דַּרְכָּם
darkam
GROWS FROM
דרך
To tread or step; to travel a course.
The word for “way” comes from the root “to tread”: a way is a course made by repeated steps. The verse holds a sharp tension: the course is folly, yet the mouths that follow it welcome its sayings; inheritance gives it continuity, not wisdom.
ALSO GROWS
darak: To tread, step, or travel.
דָּרַךְ
A way is not only an idea; it is a course made by steps taken along it.
midrakh: A place trodden or a footing.
מִדְרָךְ
This branch evokes the trace left by feet, a course already made available for others to follow.
יִרְצוּ
yirtsu
GROWS FROM
רצה
To be pleased with, accept, or favor.
“approve” in this verse is yirtsu. The root carries the sense of being pleased with or accepting something. Approval here is more than bare repetition: the saying is welcomed into the mouth, helping the inherited way persist.
ALSO GROWS
ratsah: To be pleased with, accept, or favor.
רָצָה
This is the root’s basic action: approval carries the shade of welcome or acceptance.
hirtsah: To appease or satisfy.
הִרְצָה
This related form shows the root’s movement toward making something acceptable or pleasing.
THE PATTERN
Words can carry a way forward across generations, but repetition does not change its character.
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.There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.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
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.Proverbs uses the same Hebrew root דרך for “way,” the course made by treading. Together, the verses show that a path can seem right and gain approval while its character remains unchanged.
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