What Does Psalm 78:63 Mean in the King James?
The fire consumed their young men; and their maidens were not given to marriage.
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
Here, fire eats the young men, while the silence around the maidens marks a future without wedding celebration.
THE MEANING
The verse names what devastation does to a people: fire consumes its young men, and its maidens are not given in marriage. The loss reaches into the shared future, where the absence of weddings becomes another measure of what has been cut off.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that catastrophe is measured only by the bodies already lost: it also silences the bonds and celebrations that would have carried life forward.
THE ROOT
אָכְלָה
ʾākəlâ
GROWS FROM
אכל
To eat, consume, or devour.
“consumed” in this verse is ʾākəlâ. The Hebrew verb for what the fire does comes from the ordinary root for eating. That makes the fire a devourer: it does not merely touch the young men; it consumes them.
ALSO GROWS
ʾākal: To eat or devour.
אָכַל
The verb names the fire’s action as eating, making the violence direct and bodily.
maʾăḵōlet: Food or fuel.
מַאֲכֹלֶת
Isaiah uses this word for people as the fire’s fuel, carrying the same eating-root into the image of a people consumed.
לֹא הוּלָּלוּ
lo hullalu
GROWS FROM
הלל
To praise, celebrate, or boast.
“not given to marriage” in this verse is lo hullalu. The Hebrew verb carries the root of praise and celebration. Alongside the KJV’s rendering of maidens not given in marriage, that root lets the missing wedding celebration sound in the line too.
ALSO GROWS
halelu: Praise!
הַלְלוּ
This familiar imperative from the same root shows praise as a public act; here, the maidens are not being celebrated.
hithallēl: To boast or glory in.
הִתְהַלֵּל
This branch keeps the root’s sense of open acclaim, sharpening the silence surrounding the maidens.
THE PATTERN
Devastation reaches beyond the lives it takes to silence the ordinary signs of shared life and future.
Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.THE THREAD
Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.Isaiah calls the people “the fuel of the fire” with מַאֲכֹלֶת (maʾăḵōlet), “food” or “fuel,” from the same אכל (ʾ-k-l, eat) root as “consumed” here. The shared root makes the fire’s violence legible as devouring: here it eats the young men; there the people become its fuel.
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