What Does Psalm 80:12 Mean in the King James?
Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?
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 question turns on a breach: once the wall around the fruitful life is opened, passing hands can take what it holds.
THE MEANING
You see a fruitful life with its enclosing boundary torn down, so passersby can reach in and take what it bears. The question is addressed to God with the pain of exposure: why is the protection around this life gone? The fruit is still there; it is now open to plunder.
THE ROOT
פָּרַצְתָּ
pāraṣtā
GROWS FROM
פרץ
pāraṣ
To breach, break through, or burst out.
The English phrase “broken down” can sound like simple removal; פָּרַץ (pāraṣ, “to breach or burst through”) carries the force of opening a boundary. The same root can describe breaking out or spreading, so here the opened wall leaves what it held exposed.
ALSO GROWS
perets: A breach or opening made by breaking through.
פֶּרֶץ
This noun makes the breach itself visible: the wall is not simply absent; it has been forced open.
pāraṣ: To break through, burst out, or spread.
פָּרַץ
The root can carry a sense of expansion, but here the opening exposes the vineyard to those passing by.
גְּדֵרֶיהָ
gederêha
GROWS FROM
גדר
gādar
To wall in, enclose, or make a boundary.
English “hedges” can sound like garden detail; גָּדַר (gādar, “to wall in or enclose”) names a made boundary that holds a space. Beside פָּרַץ (pāraṣ, “to breach”), that enclosure and its break form the verse’s central mechanism.
ALSO GROWS
gādar: To wall in, hedge, or enclose.
גָּדַר
The word points to a boundary made around the vineyard, the barrier whose breach the verse questions.
gederah: A fence, enclosure, or pen.
גְּדֵרָה
This branch shows the hedge as a boundary that holds something within; once it is broken, the fruit is reachable.
THE PATTERN
A fruitful space depends on its boundary; when that boundary is broken, what it holds becomes exposed.
And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.Hear another parable: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country:THE THREAD
And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:Isaiah 5:5 uses גָּדֵר (gāder, “hedge or enclosure”) for the vineyard’s boundary and פָּרַץ (pāraṣ, “breach or break through”) for its broken wall. It makes the cost of the broken boundary explicit: the vineyard is eaten and trampled.
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