What Does Psalm 57:8 Mean in the King James?
Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
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 singer does not wait for dawn to wake him; he calls his own glory, his instruments, and the dawn itself into wakefulness.
THE MEANING
Your inner weight is summoned to wake alongside the instruments that give it voice. The Hebrew ending can be heard as “I will awaken the dawn,” so the singer rises as one who calls morning into the scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that awakening must wait for morning to arrive: the singer meets the dawn as something he also awakens.
THE ROOT
עוּרָה
ʿûrâ
GROWS FROM
ע־ו־ר
ʿ-w-r
To wake, rouse, or stir.
“awake” in this verse is ʿûrâ. The same root repeats in the calls to the speaker’s glory and to the instruments, then returns in the speaker’s own act of waking. The verse makes awakening a shared movement: the inner self stirs, the music stirs, and the voice answers.
ALSO GROWS
ʿorer: To rouse or stir up.
עוֹרֵר
This branch shows that awakening can be an active stirring, not only the end of sleep.
heʿir: To awaken or arouse.
הֵעִיר
The verse’s final verb uses this causative form: the speaker does not merely wake but calls something else into wakefulness.
כְּבוֹדִי
kevodi
GROWS FROM
כ־ב־ד
k-b-d
Weight, heaviness, or honor; kavod is weightiness.
“My glory” carries the sense of the speaker’s own weight and honored substance. That weight is not a distant reputation: it is addressed as something within the speaker that can wake and join the song.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy or weighty.
כָּבֵד
This branch reveals the concrete sense underneath “glory”: what has weight carries presence and significance.
hikhbid: To make heavy or increase weight.
הִכְבִּיד
Its causative form echoes the verse’s movement from calling the inner weight awake to giving that awakening force through song.
שָּׁחַר
shachar
GROWS FROM
ש־ח־ר
sh-ḥ-r
Dawn; a related verbal form means to seek early.
The Hebrew can be heard not only as “I will awake early” but as “I will awaken the dawn.” The word holds the hour and the dawn together, turning morning from a time the singer enters into something the singer calls awake.
ALSO GROWS
shachar: The break of day or dawn.
שַׁחַר
This is the word at the end of the verse: dawn itself becomes the object of the speaker’s awakening.
leshacher: To seek early, especially at daybreak.
לְשַׁחֵר
This related form lets the dawn carry both arrival and pursuit: morning is something sought and something awakened.
THE PATTERN
Awakening becomes a voice that rises into song and light.
Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.THE THREAD
Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.The shared awakening root and nearly identical wording make this a clear echo: the instruments are summoned, and the singer answers by waking. The Hebrew ending also carries the image of awakening the dawn, extending the call from the self into morning.
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