What Does Psalm 73:4 Mean in the King James?
For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.
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
Death seems to leave the prosperous untouched, so ease can masquerade as proof of favor.
THE MEANING
You see people who seem to reach death without bonds, while their strength remains robust. The verse lets that hard, unfair-looking ease stand in full view; it does not yet explain it away.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A life that looks easy and strong is not thereby proven aligned, just as suffering does not prove that someone is forsaken.
THE ROOT
בָּרִיא
bārîʾ
GROWS FROM
ברא
b-r-ʾ
To be stout or well-nourished; robust, healthy.
בָּרִיא (bārîʾ, “robust, healthy”) gives “firm” a bodily fullness: the people described are not merely inwardly steady, but appear well and strong. That makes the contrast sharper, their ease seems to hold even as death approaches.
ALSO GROWS
bərîʾôt: Robust, well-nourished; feminine plural.
בְּרִיאוֹת
In Genesis 41:2, the same word describes healthy, fat cows, echoing the bodily robustness behind “their strength is firm.”
ha-bərîʾāh: The robust or fat one; feminine singular.
הַבְּרִיאָה
In Ezekiel 34:16, the word describes a fat sheep, again linking this root to bodily fullness and strength.
לְמוֹתָם
ləmôtām
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
To die; death.
The phrase “their death” grows from the same root as the act of dying and the state of being dead. Hebrew keeps the passage’s final moment joined to the process that leads into it, making the lack of bonds at death part of the same unsettling picture.
ALSO GROWS
mût: To die.
מוּת
The verb names the passage into death that the verse describes as apparently unbound.
mēt: Dead; a dead person.
מֵת
This form names the condition that follows dying, keeping the act and its outcome within one root family.
môt: Death.
מוֹת
This noun recurs in Psalm 116:15, where the death of the faithful is called precious in the LORD’s sight.
THE PATTERN
The apparent prosperity of the wicked can remain troublingly intact, even when death draws near.
They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.THE THREAD
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.Both verses use מות (mût, “to die”), the root behind “death.” Psalm 73 shows death appearing untroubled for the prosperous; Psalm 116 calls the faithful person’s death precious to the LORD, opening the image beyond outward ease.
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