What Does Psalm 69:7 Mean in the King James?
Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.
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
Reproach can cover the face without changing whom the suffering is for.
THE MEANING
When you bear reproach for God’s sake, shame can still cover your face; loyalty does not make exposure painless. The verse holds disgrace and allegiance in one moment, so shame does not define what you are carrying.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being shamed means you have failed God: here the reproach comes because of God.
THE ROOT
נָשָׂאתִי
nāśāʾtî
GROWS FROM
נשא
נָשָׂא (nāśāʾ): to lift, carry, bear.
“borne” in this verse is nāśāʾtî. The verb holds lifting and carrying together: reproach is something the speaker takes up, not merely a label attached to him. נָשִׂיא (nāśîʾ, prince or leader) carries the sense of one raised, while נְשִׂיאַת כַּפַּיִם (neśîʾat kappayim, lifting of hands) makes the upward motion visible. The root lets burden and elevation share one verbal seed even as shame covers the face.
ALSO GROWS
nāśîʾ: Leader, prince; one raised to prominence.
נָשִׂיא
This branch shows the root can name what is lifted up, while the verse names what the speaker carries.
neśîʾat kappayim: Lifting of hands.
נְשִׂיאַת כַּפַּיִם
The same root appears in an expression for raising hands, keeping its upward motion present inside “borne.”
חֶרְפָּה
ḥerpāh
GROWS FROM
חרף
חָרַף (ḥāraph): to reproach, taunt, revile.
The root connects the disgrace being borne with the act of reviling that brings it. Its forms hold both the public wound and the force that inflicts it, so “reproach” is more than a private feeling.
ALSO GROWS
ḥerpāh: Reproach, disgrace.
חֶרְפָּה
This is the disgrace named in the verse, carried as a real public burden.
məḥārēph: One who reviles or reproaches.
מְחָרֵף
The same consonants name the person who brings reproach, showing the social force contained in the word family.
כְלִמָּה
kelimmāh
GROWS FROM
כלם
כָּלַם (kālam): to shame, humiliate, disgrace.
The root links shame as a condition with the act of putting someone to shame. Here that disgrace is pictured as covering the face, making exposure visible as well as inwardly felt.
ALSO GROWS
killēm: To put to shame, humiliate.
כִּלֵּם
This active form names the act that produces the shame covering the speaker’s face.
nikhlam: Humiliated, put to shame.
נִכְלָם
This form shows the person undergoing the shame, as the verse does when disgrace covers the face.
THE PATTERN
Public reproach can come because of whom a person stands with, while shame remains a real part of that exposure.
O LORD, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke.Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.THE THREAD
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.Psalm 69:7 uses נָשָׂאתִי (nāśāʾtî, I have borne); Isaiah 53:4 uses נָשָׂא (nāśāʾ, he bore) for carrying griefs. The shared root נָשָׂא (nāśāʾ, lift, carry, bear) ties reproach carried for God’s sake to griefs carried for others.
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