What Does Psalm 59:11 Mean in the King James?
Slay them not, lest my people forget: scatter them by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord our shield.
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
Instead of erasing the threat, the prayer asks that it stay alive, scattered and brought low, so the people keep remembering.
THE MEANING
This verse gives language to danger that has not disappeared: the plea is for its agents to be shaken loose, scattered, and brought down rather than killed. Their continued presence keeps the community’s memory awake, while “our shield” names the LORD as the covering on which that community depends.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that relief requires the threat to be erased: here the attackers are to remain alive, dispersed, and lowered so the people will not forget.
THE ROOT
הֲנִיעֵמוֹ
hani'emo
GROWS FROM
נוע
nûaʿ
Move, sway, shake, or wander.
English “scatter” can sound like simple dispersal, but הֲנִיעֵמוֹ is a causative form of נוע: make them move, sway, or wander. The prayer asks that the attackers remain alive in a state of instability and be brought low; the contrast with “slay” is deliberate.
ALSO GROWS
nûaʿ: Move, sway, or wander.
נוּעַ
This root carries motion and instability, giving “scatter” the sense of being made to move rather than simply disappearing.
hēnîaʿ: Cause to move, shake, or set in motion.
הֵנִיעַ
This causative form shows that the verse asks for the attackers to be actively unsettled.
מָגִנֵּנוּ
māginnēnû
GROWS FROM
גנן
gānan
Hedge around, protect, or defend.
The closing title “our shield” grows from a root of guarding and protecting, so the verse ends with shelter as an active boundary around those under threat. That image does not cancel the preceding demand to scatter and bring down the attackers; protection and violence stand together in the line.
ALSO GROWS
gānan: Protect, defend, or hedge around.
גָּנַן
This is the root action behind the shield: surrounding what is exposed with protection.
māgēn: Shield.
מָגֵן
The verse’s “our shield” names the protective object associated with this root.
THE PATTERN
The threat is kept in view and brought low so that a community remembers the power that shelters it.
Put them in fear, O LORD: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah.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.Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.THE THREAD
For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.Both verses name the LORD מָגֵן (māgēn), “shield”; Psalm 84:11 makes explicit the protective image compressed into Psalm 59:11’s closing title. The shared word does not soften Psalm 59’s violent request: its plea for attackers to be scattered and brought low is voiced by a community naming the LORD as its cover.
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