What Does Psalm 69:5 Mean in the King James?
O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee.
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
God’s knowing reaches the very place the speaker names as foolish and guilty.
THE MEANING
Your foolishness is known to God, and your guilt is not concealed from God. The verse holds both in the open at once: what is foolish in you and what leaves you culpable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that concealed guilt lies outside God’s knowledge does not hold here; the verse says it is not hidden from God.
THE ROOT
יָדַעְתָּ
yādaʿtā
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“knowest” in this verse is yādaʿtā. The Hebrew yada carries knowing and perceiving, not merely holding information. Here, the speaker’s folly and guilt are within that knowing; the next clause makes clear that neither is concealed.
ALSO GROWS
yada: To know or perceive.
יָדַע
This is the verb in the verse: God knows the speaker’s folly.
daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root shows knowing as an ongoing field of perception, not just a passing fact.
אַשְׁמוֹתַי
ashmotai
GROWS FROM
אשם
To incur guilt or be liable.
The word translated “sins” is built from a root that also names guilt and liability. Its shade of culpability sharpens the verse: the speaker’s guilt, as well as the folly, lies within what God knows.
ALSO GROWS
ashēm: Guilty or liable.
אָשֵׁם
This form makes explicit the culpability carried by the verse’s word for “sins.”
asham: Guilt; also a reparation offering.
אָשָׁם
The same root links guilt with the term for a reparation offering, showing how the language holds culpability and its answering together.
THE PATTERN
God’s knowing reaches what a person would call hidden, including inner failure.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.Psalm 69:5 uses ידע (yada) for God’s knowing of the speaker’s folly; Psalm 139:1 uses the same root for knowing the self that has been searched. Together they show that the inner fault belongs within the person God knows.
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