What Does Psalm 88:15 Mean in the King James?

I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.

Psalm 88:15 · KJV

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 word translated “suffer” means “carry”: this is a life lived under a weight the speaker traces back to youth.

THE MEANING

The pain reaches back to youth; death feels close, and God’s terrors leave you disoriented. The verse speaks that reality aloud before God without explaining it away or supplying a resolution.

THE ROOT

נָשָׂאתִי

nāśāʾtî

GROWS FROM

נשא

nāśāʾ

To lift, carry, or bear.

The Hebrew nāśāʾtî (⁨נָשָׂאתִי⁩, “I have carried”) gives “suffer” the image of bearing a weight across time. Its branch massāʾ (⁨מַשָּׂא⁩, “burden”) shares the same root, making the terrors something carried, not only felt.

ALSO GROWS

massāʾ: Burden, load.

מַשָּׂא

This branch names what can be carried; the terrors in the verse weigh on the speaker over time.

nōśēʾ: One who carries or bears.

נֹשֵׂא

This participle presents carrying as an ongoing state, echoing the speaker’s long burden.

THE PATTERN

Lament speaks the full force of suffering to God without waiting for it to be resolved.

Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

Job 7:11 · KJVJob gives anguish and bitterness direct speech before God, without softening either.

To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

Psalm 22:1 · KJVThe speaker voices abandonment and distress to God as they are felt.

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Matthew 27:46 · KJVJesus’s cry gives the same anguished lament words without resolving them in the moment.

THE THREAD

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:4 · KJV

The Hebrew verb nāśāʾ (⁨נָשָׂא⁩, “carry” or “bear”) appears in both: here the speaker has borne God’s terrors, and there the servant bears griefs and sorrows. That shared root lets the language of burden echo across the verses while Psalm 88 keeps its unresolved pain intact.

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