What Does Psalm 79:11 Mean in the King James?
Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die;
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 prisoner’s groan arrives before God, and preservation means leaving a living remainder where death seemed final.
THE MEANING
Your groaning comes before God even from the place that binds you. The verse asks divine power to preserve those already counted among the dead, holding open life where the outcome seems settled.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a prisoner’s cry is too trapped or too late to reach God: being marked for death does not put a person beyond divine power.
THE ROOT
הוֹתֵר
hōtēr
GROWS FROM
יָתַר
yāṯar
Remain, be left over, or leave something remaining.
“preserve” in this verse is hōtēr. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of leaving someone over, letting a remnant remain. The plea asks that people already called “sons of death” still be among those left alive.
ALSO GROWS
yeter: A rest or remainder.
יֶתֶר
It brings the idea of preservation into focus: someone remains when loss seemed certain.
yitrôn: What exceeds or remains beyond the immediate measure.
יִתְרוֹן
The shared root holds a sense of what is left beyond expectation, echoing the plea for life beyond death’s apparent claim.
אֲנָקַת
ʾănāqat
GROWS FROM
אנק
ʾ-n-q
Groan; make a low cry of distress.
“sighing” in this verse is ʾănāqat. The word can carry the force of a groan, a cry of distress that can be heard. The verse pictures that sound coming before God, not disappearing inside the prisoner’s confinement.
ALSO GROWS
ʾānaq: To groan or utter a cry of distress.
אָנַק
It shows the sighing as an expressed sound of suffering.
ʾănāqāh: A groan or lament.
אֲנָקָה
This noun is the form behind the verse’s “sighing,” giving the quiet English word the depth of a lament.
אָסִיר
ʾāsîr
GROWS FROM
אָסַר
ʾāsar
Bind, tie, or confine.
The Hebrew word for prisoner grows from the act of binding: the person is one held in bonds. Yet the bond does not keep the groan from coming before God.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsar: To tie, bind, or imprison.
אָסַר
It reveals the physical image inside “prisoner”: someone held fast.
ʾāsûr: One who is bound or restricted.
אָסוּר
The shared root links the prisoner’s identity to the condition of confinement that the verse names.
THE PATTERN
A cry from confinement or oppression reaches God even when the sufferer cannot free themselves.
And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death;Psalm 102:20 repeats the Hebrew pairing אֲנָקַת אָסִיר, “the groaning of the prisoner,” along with “the sons of death.” The shared wording reveals the same movement: the bound person’s groan is heard, and those facing death are opened toward release.
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