What Does Psalm 83:4 Mean in the King James?
They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
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 plan is to erase Israel twice: from the present as a people, then from memory as a name.
THE MEANING
A people is targeted twice here: its communal existence is to be cut away, then its name is to vanish from remembrance. The verse makes memory part of the violence itself; erasure seeks to outlast the people it attacks.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that targeting a people’s name and memory is merely symbolic; the verse shows it as the second stage of cutting them off as a people.
THE ROOT
וְנַכְחִידֵם
wenakhḥidēm
GROWS FROM
כחד
k-ḥ-d
Hide or conceal; in the causative form, cause to disappear.
The phrase “cut them off” carries an erasure logic: this root can mean to conceal or to make disappear. Beside “no more remembered,” it describes a plan to remove a people both from public existence and from memory.
ALSO GROWS
kāḥad: Hide, conceal.
כָּחַד
The root’s sense of hiding sharpens the image of a people being made to disappear.
hikhḥid: Cause to disappear, destroy.
הִכְחִיד
This causative form brings out the intended result behind “cut them off.”
יִזָּכֵר
yizzākhēr
GROWS FROM
זכר
z-k-r
Remember, call to mind, mention.
“remembered” in this verse is yizzākhēr. The name שֵׁם (shem, name as nature) is what the speakers want removed from memory: their aim reaches identity, not just a sound. The same root זכר (z-k-r, remember or call to mind) also gives זִכָּרוֹן (zikkārōn, memorial or remembrance), linking the act of remembering with what keeps memory alive.
ALSO GROWS
zākhār: Remember, call to mind.
זָכַר
This verb names the act the speakers want to extinguish.
zikkārōn: Memorial, remembrance.
זִכָּרוֹן
This branch shows how the same root names a lasting means of keeping something in memory.
THE PATTERN
A name carries identity into remembrance, so the struggle over a people can extend from their existence to who remains in memory.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.THE THREAD
Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.Isaiah joins the same Hebrew root זכר (z-k-r, remember or call to mind) to desire for the LORD’s name. Psalm 83:4 shows the inverse: the speakers seek to sever Israel’s name from remembrance.
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