What Does Psalm 77:8 Mean in the King James?
Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?
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 verse pairs faithful love with the spoken word: its deepest fear is that both have stopped for every generation.
THE MEANING
You can feel the full weight of the question: has faithful love ended, and has the word you trusted run out, not just for now, but forever? The verse lets that fear speak in the present, stretching it across generation after generation.
THE ROOT
חַסְדּוֹ
ḥasdô
GROWS FROM
חסד
ḥ-s-d
Loyal kindness expressed through a lasting relationship; steadfast love.
The Hebrew chesed holds more than a moment of mercy: it carries the weight of faithful love. The question asks whether that bond has vanished for good.
ALSO GROWS
ḥesed: Faithful love, loyal kindness.
חֶסֶד
This is the word in the verse, naming the love feared to have ended.
ḥāsîd: A loyal or devoted one.
חָסִיד
The related word describes someone marked by the same quality of faithful devotion.
אֹמֶר
ʾōmer
GROWS FROM
אמר
ʾ-m-r
To say or speak.
The English promise carries assurance, while the Hebrew word keeps the utterance itself in view. The question reaches beyond whether a promise still stands to whether the speaking continues through every generation.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāmar: To say, speak.
אָמַר
The root makes the promise a spoken word whose continuation is being questioned.
ʾimrāh: An utterance or word.
אִמְרָה
This related form keeps attention on the word as something spoken and heard.
THE PATTERN
Scripture measures faithful love by its persistence across time and from generation to generation.
For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite. I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.THE THREAD
For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.Psalm 77 asks whether chesed, faithful love, has ended; Psalm 100 names that same love as everlasting. It also sets the same horizon, generation after generation, against the fear that the word has run out.
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