What Does Psalm 69:12 Mean in the King James?
They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.
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 insult does not stop at being spoken: the speaker is made into music people can carry away.
THE MEANING
People gathered in public and people drinking turn the speaker into a refrain of mockery. The attack reaches beyond a spoken insult: a person becomes material others repeat as entertainment.
THE ROOT
נְגִינוֹת
nǝginot
GROWS FROM
נגן
To play an instrument or make music.
The speaker is not merely called ridiculous; he becomes something performed and repeated. The same word for “song” appears in Job’s description of becoming other people’s song, making the humiliation feel like a refrain.
ALSO GROWS
neginah: Instrumental music; a musical composition.
נְגִינָה
This branch makes the image concrete: the speaker becomes material for a piece others perform.
menaggen: A person who plays an instrument; a musician.
מְנַגֵּן
The root keeps the image active: someone makes the music, and the speaker’s humiliation is what they play.
יְשִׂיחוּ
yesîḥû
GROWS FROM
שׂיח
To muse, meditate, speak, or converse.
“speak against” in this verse is yesîḥû. This root can name meditation as well as speech, joining words turned over inwardly with words spoken aloud. English can make the insult sound like a single outburst; the Hebrew root carries a wider field of musing and talk.
ALSO GROWS
sîaḥ: Musing, meditation, or discourse.
שִׂיחַ
This noun shows that the root’s speech can also be words a person turns over.
sîḥâ: Conversation or discourse.
שִׂיחָה
This branch brings out the social side of the verse: contempt moves through people’s talk.
THE PATTERN
Public contempt can turn a person’s suffering into words and refrains that others repeat.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,THE THREAD
And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.The word translated “song” in both verses comes from נגן (nagan), to make music. Job’s line opens this image further: the mocked person becomes not only a song but a byword, something people repeat.
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