What Does Psalm 78:6 Mean in the King James?

That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:

Psalm 78:6 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

Knowing here is a relay: one generation receives the words, and the next makes them a story again.

THE MEANING

What is entrusted to you does not end in your own knowing; it becomes something the next generation can know. Those who arise after you recount it to their children, and the words move forward through living voices.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the belief that what matters will pass on by itself, without being retold.

THE ROOT

יֵדְעוּ

yēdeʿû

GROWS FROM

ידע

y-d-ʿ

The three-letter root ⁨ידע⁩ (y-d-ʿ) means to know, recognize, or perceive.

“know” in this verse is yēdeʿû. The verse asks for more than stored information: knowing becomes the condition for recounting. What one generation knows is made audible again by those who arise after it.

ALSO GROWS

daʿat: knowledge, awareness

דַּעַת

This noun from the same root shows that knowing can take form as an enduring body of knowledge passed between people.

maddaʿ: knowledge, learning

מַדָּע

This branch holds the sense of acquired understanding, giving depth to the knowledge carried into the next generation.

וִיסַפְּרוּ

wîsapperû

GROWS FROM

ספר

s-p-r

The three-letter root ⁨ספר⁩ (s-p-r) carries the senses of counting, recounting, and telling.

The word translated “declare” also belongs to a root that means to count or recount. The verse presents transmission as telling the received account again, keeping it present through each generation.

ALSO GROWS

sāpar: to count, recount, tell

סָפַר

Its counting and storytelling senses meet in the act of repeating what has been received.

sēfer: book, scroll, written record

סֵפֶר

This branch shows how a recounting can also be held in a form that outlasts one voice.

mispar: number, count

מִסְפָּר

The counting branch makes the root’s link between number and narrative visible: both are ways of giving an account.

THE PATTERN

What one generation receives remains alive as each generation recounts it to the next.

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

Deuteronomy 6:7 · KJVThe teaching moves through ordinary life, giving the next generation repeated chances to receive and know the words.

One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.

Psalm 145:4 · KJVOne generation becomes the voice that carries the account of what it has received to another.

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.

2 Timothy 2:2 · KJVThe received teaching continues through a chain of people who pass it on and teach others.

THE THREAD

For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

Genesis 18:19 · KJV

The Hebrew verb ⁨יָדַע⁩ (yādaʿ, “to know”) is the same root behind the knowing in Psalm 78:6. In Genesis, knowing is joined directly to children carrying the way forward, showing knowledge as something passed through a household rather than held as an isolated fact.

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