What Does Psalm 67:4 Mean in the King James?
O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: for thou shalt judge the people righteously, and govern the nations upon earth. Selah.
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 locates the nations’ joy in a world governed on a level path.
THE MEANING
The nations’ gladness has a ground: judgment is upright, and their way through the earth is guided. Justice becomes a shared, level path through public life, and song rises from that common order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that judgment can only mean condemnation: here, the peoples rejoice because judgment is upright and their world is guided in equity.
THE ROOT
מֵישָׁר
meyshar
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ר
yashar
To be straight, upright, or level.
The Hebrew word translated “righteously” carries the image of straightness and levelness. That root opens justice as a measure without a crooked path or uneven ground, making it something the nations can share.
ALSO GROWS
yashar: Straight; upright.
יָשָׁר
The root’s basic image gives upright judgment its shape: a course that does not bend away from fairness.
mishor: Level ground; a plain.
מִישׁוֹר
This branch makes equity feel like level terrain across which people can move without being forced off course.
יִשְׁפֹּט
yishpot
GROWS FROM
ש־פ־ט
shaphat
To judge, decide, or exercise rule.
The root branches into words for both a judge or ruler and the judgment or order rendered. This links judging with the shaping of shared life; the verse places that judgment alongside the guiding of nations and makes its uprightness the ground of their song.
ALSO GROWS
shophet: Judge; ruler.
שֹׁפֵט
The branch joins judgment with the person who carries authority to order public life.
mishpat: Judgment; justice; legal order.
מִשְׁפָּט
The act of judging opens into a shared order, rather than remaining a verdict isolated from the people.
THE PATTERN
When the earth’s peoples are met with upright judgment, justice makes room for shared joy and a world beyond conflict.
Before the LORD; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.THE THREAD
The way of the just is uprightness: thou, most upright, dost weigh the path of the just.Isaiah’s word for “uprightness,” מֵישָׁרִים (meysharim, uprightness or equity), shares the root יָשָׁר (yashar, to be straight or upright) with the Psalm’s מֵישָׁר (meyshar, uprightness or equity). Isaiah places that straightness on a path, revealing the shape beneath the nations’ song: equity is a way through the world.
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