What Does Psalm 50:16 Mean in the King James?
But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my covenant in thy mouth?
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 verse exposes the distance between carrying God’s covenant on the lips and living under its claim.
THE MEANING
This question meets the reader wherever sacred words become a claim to authority without a matching life. The covenant can be spoken aloud while its demand remains uncarried; the verse brings that divide into view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Quoting or teaching sacred words does not, by itself, prove that the speaker lives by what those words say.
THE ROOT
וַתִּשָּׂא
vattissaʾ
GROWS FROM
נָשָׂא
nasaʾ
To lift, carry, or bear.
“take” in this verse is vattissaʾ. The Hebrew says to lift or bear the covenant upon the mouth. The image makes speech a kind of carrying: the question is whether the speaker bears what the mouth names.
ALSO GROWS
massaʾ: A burden or load
מַשָּׂא
A burden is something carried; the covenant in the mouth is pictured as something the speaker bears.
nasiʾ: A prince or leader, one elevated
נָשִׂיא
This related form carries the sense of being lifted, reinforcing the root’s physical image of bearing or elevation.
לְסַפֵּר
lesapper
GROWS FROM
סָפַר
safar
To count, recount, or tell.
The verb translated “declare” belongs to a root that can mean counting or recounting. The verse puts the speaking of God’s instruction beside the question of what the speaker is actually carrying.
ALSO GROWS
sefer: A book or scroll
סֵפֶר
A sefer holds words to be read and recounted, linking the act of declaring to the written record.
mispar: A number or count
מִסְפָּר
This branch preserves the root’s sense of reckoning, which also lives in recounting or telling.
חֻקָּי
ḥuqqay
GROWS FROM
חָקַק
ḥaqaq
To cut in, engrave, or mark out.
The word for “statutes” grows from a root of marking or engraving. God’s instruction is pictured as something with a defined shape, not merely words available to repeat.
ALSO GROWS
ḥoq: A statute, decree, or prescribed portion
חֹק
This related noun names what is marked out or appointed, giving the statutes a sense of defined form.
meḥoqeq: A lawgiver or ruler
מְחוֹקֵק
This branch connects the act of marking or decreeing with the one who establishes the instruction.
THE PATTERN
Sacred speech becomes self-contradictory when the speaker’s conduct refuses the truth the mouth names.
Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.THE THREAD
Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.Both verses use נשָׂא (nasaʾ), “to lift, carry, or bear”: here the covenant is borne on the mouth, and there the name is borne. Since a name carries nature, the command reaches the nature a mouth represents, not only the sound it utters.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us