What Does Psalm 71:1 Mean in the King James?
In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.
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 Hebrew word translated “trust” means “take refuge,” so this verse pictures trust as entering shelter while the threat of shame is still present.
THE MEANING
The reader’s trust is an act of taking refuge in the LORD, placing the vulnerable self within a sheltering presence. The plea against shame comes from inside that trust, while the threat is still real.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that asking for refuge signals a lack of trust: here, the plea itself is how trust is expressed.
THE ROOT
חָסִיתִי
ḥāsîtî
GROWS FROM
חסה
to seek refuge, take shelter
The Hebrew verb behind “put my trust” pictures a person taking shelter. Its same-root noun מַחְסֶה means “refuge” or “shelter,” joining trust and the place of safety in one word family.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsāh: to seek refuge, take shelter
חָסָה
This is the verb’s root form: the speaker’s “I have taken refuge” grows from this act.
maḥseh: refuge, shelter
מַחְסֶה
This noun carries the same consonants, ח־ס־ה, and names the shelter that the verb describes seeking.
THE PATTERN
Refuge is found by turning toward a sheltering presence while danger remains real.
To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:THE THREAD
Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.The phrase “put their trust” translates the same Hebrew root, חסה, as Psalm 71:1. Both verses picture trust as taking refuge in a person, not merely holding an idea.
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