What Does Psalm 73:11 Mean in the King James?
And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?
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
Hebrew uses the same root for “know” and “knowledge,” making both questions one challenge: can the Most High perceive at all?
THE MEANING
When harm appears untouched, the mind can turn silence into the claim that God neither sees nor knows. This verse gives that suspicion its blunt form: it questions whether knowledge is present in the Most High.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what goes unanswered has gone unseen, or that God’s silence means ignorance.
THE ROOT
יָדַע
yādaʿ
GROWS FROM
ידע
to know, recognize, perceive
“know / knowledge” in this verse is yādaʿ. The two clauses reuse this family: the verb “know” and the noun “knowledge” grow from the same root. Their question presses beyond what God knows to whether perception belongs to the Most High at all.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: to know, perceive
יָדַע
This is the verb behind the speakers’ question about whether God knows.
dēʿāh: knowledge, understanding
דֵּעָה
This is the noun in the second clause, echoing the same root and sharpening the denial.
daʿat: knowledge
דַּעַת
This related form shows the same root’s broader language of knowing.
עֶלְיוֹן
ʿElyon
GROWS FROM
עלה
to go up, ascend
“the most High” in this verse is ʿElyon. Elyon names the one who is highest, from a root of going up. The title’s height sits beside the question about knowing: in the speakers’ imagining, what is above them seems too far away to perceive what happens below.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: to go up, ascend
עָלָה
The verb supplies the upward movement within the root behind Elyon.
ʿăliyyāh: ascent, going up
עֲלִיָּה
This noun preserves the root’s upward movement, illuminating the height carried by the title.
THE PATTERN
When wrongdoing seems hidden, people can mistake delayed consequence for divine blindness, though hidden things remain visible to God.
Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?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
If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?This verse uses the same Hebrew root, ידע, for “we knew it not” and “doth not he know it?” The claim of ignorance turns back toward the speaker: the one who knows also perceives the heart.
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