What Does Psalm 78:4 Mean in the King James?
We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.
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 treats silence as a way the LORD’s deeds can disappear, and telling as the act that keeps them in a family’s memory.
THE MEANING
What has been seen and received remains alive across generations as it is told to those coming after. The LORD’s praise, strength, and works are carried forward in speech.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is not passed on will remain alive on its own: hidden testimony can disappear from the generations that follow.
THE ROOT
מְסַפְּרִים
mesapperim
GROWS FROM
ספר
Count, recount, or relate.
“shewing” in this verse is mesapperim. The verb for telling shares its root with counting and recounting: the deeds are named one by one. The same root gives סֵפֶר (sefer), a book or written record, linking spoken testimony with the keeping of memory.
ALSO GROWS
saphar: Count, recount, relate.
סָפַר
The deeds are recounted in speech so they remain known beyond the people who first saw them.
sefer: Book, scroll, written record.
סֵפֶר
This branch connects recounting with a record that carries what happened forward.
נְכַחֵד
nekhaḥed
GROWS FROM
כחד
Conceal, keep back; in some forms, cause to disappear.
The word translated “hide” shares a root whose range also includes disappearance. The verse’s refusal to conceal is therefore a refusal to let the LORD’s deeds vanish from the memory passed between generations.
ALSO GROWS
kachad: Hide, conceal, withhold.
כָּחַד
This is the root behind the verse’s refusal to keep the deeds from the children.
hikhchid: Suppress, cause to disappear.
הִכְחִיד
This form makes visible what concealment can do: remove something from view and memory.
THE PATTERN
Testimony remains available when each generation carries it forward in words.
Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons;One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.THE THREAD
I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.Psalm 78 uses כחד (kachad, conceal) for what is not kept from the children; Psalm 40 uses the same root for what is not concealed from the congregation. Together they show testimony moving from family memory into public speech.
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