What Does Psalm 79:4 Mean in the King James?
We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.
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 reproach comes from people who dwell beside the speaker, so community itself has become the stage for ridicule.
THE MEANING
This verse names the exposure of being mocked by people near you: contempt is public, repeated, and borne by a whole “we.” The people around you turn shared pain into a spectacle, making the shame both communal and close.
THE ROOT
חֶרְפָּה
cherpah
GROWS FROM
חרף
to taunt, reproach, or defy
The root keeps the act of taunting inside the noun for reproach: the verse names contempt being done to the people, not merely a status they occupy. The same noun in Psalm 89:50 is carried in the bosom, showing how public scorn also weighs inwardly.
ALSO GROWS
charaph: to reproach, taunt, or defy
חָרַף
The verb names the act of contempt behind the reproach this people bear.
cherpah: reproach, taunt, or disgrace
חֶרְפָּה
This noun also appears in Psalm 89:50, where the same reproach is described as something carried inwardly.
שְׁכֵנֵינוּ
shekhenenu
GROWS FROM
שכן
to dwell, settle, or abide
“neighbours” in this verse is shekhenenu. The word for neighbor grows from שכן (shakan, dwell), so a neighbor is someone whose life is settled alongside yours. That makes the verse’s setting intimate: contempt comes from the shared human space where closeness lives.
ALSO GROWS
shakan: to dwell or settle
שָׁכַן
This verb is the root of the word for neighbor, tying nearness to dwelling beside someone.
mishkan: a dwelling place or tabernacle
מִשְׁכָּן
The same root names a dwelling place, deepening the verse’s picture of contempt arising within shared proximity.
THE PATTERN
Public contempt turns suffering into a spectacle before surrounding witnesses.
Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king?And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.THE THREAD
Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants; how I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty people;“Reproach” is the same Hebrew noun, חֶרְפָּה (cherpah, reproach), in both verses. Psalm 79 places that shame among neighbors and onlookers; Psalm 89 shows the same reproach carried inwardly.
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