What Does Psalm 50:18 Mean in the King James?
When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.
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
Complicity becomes more than approval: it becomes your share, the portion you hold with the adulterers.
THE MEANING
When you see theft and join yourself to it, you are not outside it; the verse names your place as a share with adulterers. Your company and your portion are joined in the same line, so participation reaches beyond the act you first notice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that seeing wrongdoing leaves you untouched by it: the verse locates complicity in joining yourself to it and sharing its company.
THE ROOT
חֶלְקְךָ
ḥelqekha
GROWS FROM
חלק
To divide or apportion; by extension, to share.
“partaker” in this verse is ḥelqekha. The Hebrew names the adulterers as the company in which your share lies. Participation is pictured as taking a portion alongside them, not merely being near them.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēleq: Portion, share, allotted part.
חֵלֶק
This is the noun within חֶלְקְךָ: your portion is with the adulterers.
ḥālaq: To divide, allot, or share out.
חָלַק
A portion is what is assigned in a division; the image makes alignment a matter of the share you take.
THE PATTERN
The company a person joins shapes the share and direction of life that person enters.
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.THE THREAD
Whoso is partner with a thief hateth his own soul: he heareth cursing, and bewrayeth it not.Psalm 50 names the adulterers as the place where your חֵלֶק (ḥēleq, share) lies; Proverbs uses the same root in חוֹלֵק (ḥōlēq, partner) for someone who shares with a thief. The repeated root makes participation concrete: joining another’s wrongdoing means taking a share with them.
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