What Does Psalm 78:62 Mean in the King James?
He gave his people over also unto the sword; and was wroth with his inheritance.
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
Belonging does not mean immunity: the very people called God’s inheritance are handed over to the sword.
THE MEANING
The verse makes the reader face a hard truth: being named as God’s own does not make a people immune to violence or judgment. The sword reaches the people, and anger falls on what is called God’s inheritance. Belonging and devastation stand together in the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being God’s own guarantees immunity from judgment: the verse calls them his inheritance and still says they are handed to the sword.
THE ROOT
וַיַּסְגֵּר
wayyasgēr
GROWS FROM
סגר
To shut, close, or enclose; in a causative form, to shut up or hand over.
The verb behind “gave over” grows from סגר, “shut” or “close.” The same seed can describe an enclosure and a surrender, so the transfer is not neutral: the people are placed within the sword’s reach.
ALSO GROWS
sāgūr: Shut, closed
סָגוּר
The closed state echoes the force of the verb: the people are confined within the danger they are handed over to.
hisgîr: Hand over, surrender
הִסְגִּיר
This causative form shows how the root’s sense of closing extends to delivering someone into another’s power.
misgeret: Frame, border, enclosure
מִסְגֶּרֶת
This word makes the root’s boundary-sense concrete: the verse’s handover places the people inside the reach of the sword.
הִתְעַבָּר
hitʿabbēr
GROWS FROM
עבר
To pass or cross over; this Hithpael form is an established idiom for becoming furious.
The word rendered “wroth” shares its root with the ordinary verb “pass over.” Here the form means furious anger; the root echo adds movement and force without replacing that plain sense.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: Pass over, cross
עָבַר
This basic verb carries the movement that remains audible in the root of the verse’s anger-word.
ʿēver: Beyond, across; the other side
עֵבֶר
This related form keeps the root’s sense of crossing or going beyond close to the more forceful idiom in the verse.
נַחֲלָתוֹ
naḥălātô
GROWS FROM
נחל
To inherit or take as a possession; a share or allotment held as one’s own.
“inheritance” in this verse is naḥălātô. The verse calls the people God’s allotted possession, not a distant promise or abstract treasure. That makes the line’s collision sharper: the people named as what belongs to God are also the ones handed over to the sword.
ALSO GROWS
nāḥal: Inherit, take possession
נָחַל
The verb makes inheritance an act of receiving or holding a share, clarifying the claim carried by “his inheritance.”
naḥălāh: Inheritance, allotted possession
נַחֲלָה
This noun is the same family as the word in the verse and brings the sense of a portion held as one’s own.
THE PATTERN
When a people turn from life, judgment can take the form of being handed over to forces that destroy or defile.
And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.I have forsaken mine house, I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:THE THREAD
And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.Both verbs grow from סגר (sāgar, “shut” or “close”): Psalm 78:62 renders it “gave over,” while Genesis 7:16 says the LORD “shut him in.” The same root describes enclosure that shelters Noah and a handover that places the people within the sword’s reach.
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