What Does Psalm 78:30 Mean in the King James?
They were not estranged from their lust. But while their meat was yet in their mouths,
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 mouth can be full while desire is still hungry.
THE MEANING
The craving can remain present while what it reaches for is already in your mouth. Possession does not necessarily loosen desire; getting what you want and being freed from wanting are not the same moment. The verse names that gap without pretending the appetite has ended.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that getting what you want will automatically end the wanting.
THE ROOT
תַּאֲוָה
ta’avah
GROWS FROM
אוה
ʾ-w-h
to desire, long for
תַּאֲוָה (ta’avah, desire or craving) comes from אָוָה (ʾāvāh, to desire or long for); it names appetite broadly, not only sexual lust. The root’s verbal forms describe the act of craving, while the noun names the craving itself, exposing the gap between having food and being released from wanting.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāvāh: to desire, long for
אָוָה
The verb names the inward reaching that remains even when the desired food is already present.
vayyit’avvu: they craved
וַיִּתְאַוּוּ
This form of the same root appears in Psalm 106:14, showing craving as an ongoing act, not merely a wish that ends when it is fulfilled.
זָרוּ
zārû
GROWS FROM
זור
zûr
to be strange, become a stranger, or turn aside
The word behind “estranged” comes from זור (zûr, to be strange or turn aside): the craving has not become foreign to them. The verse holds this closeness of desire beside a mouth already occupied; possessing the food has not made the craving a stranger.
ALSO GROWS
zār: a stranger, outsider
זָר
This related form makes the image vivid: the desire has not become an outsider to the person.
zārû: they became estranged or turned away
זָרוּ
The verse negates this action: they have not turned away from their craving, even while eating.
THE PATTERN
Appetite can keep reaching beyond what it already has and continue shaping the inner life.
All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.THE THREAD
But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert.Psalm 106:14 uses the same Hebrew root for craving in both the verb and the noun: desire is something enacted as well as felt. Beside Psalm 78:30, it reveals that food in the mouth has not ended the inward reaching.
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