What Does Psalm 6:8 Mean in the King James?

Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; for the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping.

Psalm 6:8 · KJV

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

Your weeping is not the verse’s last word: once it is heard, harm is told to leave.

THE MEANING

Your weeping has a voice, and the LORD hears it. In that hearing, those who work evil are told to depart from you; the verse holds grief and a firm boundary together.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that your grief goes unheard and that those who harm you must remain close.

THE ROOT

שָׁמַע

shāmaʿ

GROWS FROM

שמע

sh-m-ʿ

To hear, listen, or heed.

English “heard” can sound like passive reception, but this root also carries listening and heeding. The verse places that attentive hearing beside a command for harm to leave, making the response visible.

ALSO GROWS

shemaʿ: Hear; listen.

שְׁמַע

The familiar imperative comes from the same root, showing that hearing can carry the sense of attending to what is heard.

shemuʿah: A report; news that is heard.

שְׁמוּעָה

This branch shows the root extending from hearing itself to what reaches someone through hearing.

בְּכִי

bekhî

GROWS FROM

בכה

b-k-h

To weep.

The verse calls it the “voice of my weeping,” giving grief a sound that can be heard. The root keeps the act of weeping inside the noun: this is not merely a feeling, but grief expressed aloud.

ALSO GROWS

bākāh: To weep.

בָּכָה

The verb names the act held within the verse’s word for weeping.

bōḵeh: One who weeps; weeping.

בֹּכֶה

This form keeps the grief embodied in the person who gives it voice.

THE PATTERN

When God hears suffering, the response confronts the force causing it.

And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

Exodus 3:7 · KJVThe LORD hears the cry under oppression, and the verse places that hearing beside recognition of the people’s affliction.

The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.

Psalm 34:17 · KJVThe cry is heard, and deliverance follows as the response to distress.

Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

James 5:4 · KJVEven withheld wages and exploited labor cry out; their suffering reaches the Lord and stands against the injustice.

THE THREAD

The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.

Psalm 34:17 · KJV

“Heareth” comes from the same Hebrew root, ⁨שמע⁩ (shamaʿ), as “hath heard” in this verse. Psalm 34:17 makes the movement explicit: the cry is heard, and deliverance follows.

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