What Does Psalm 89:34 Mean in the King James?
My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
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 covenant is not merely unbroken; it is never treated as common, and the word that has gone forth is not revised.
THE MEANING
The covenant holds now, and the word that has gone out from God’s lips is not revised. What is spoken remains in force rather than becoming common or disposable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The fear that a divine promise can be revoked or rewritten when circumstances change is undone here: the spoken word remains whole.
THE ROOT
אֲחַלֵּל
achallel
GROWS FROM
חלל
To profane or treat as common.
The verb translated “break” carries the sense of profaning the covenant. The verse presents the bond as something that is not made common or treated as disposable.
ALSO GROWS
chol: Common or ordinary; outside the sacred.
חֹל
This branch makes the contrast clear: the covenant is not reduced to something ordinary.
chillel: Profaned or treated as common.
חִלֵּל
This form from the same root shows the force behind “break”: to violate the covenant is to profane it.
מוֹצָא
motsa
GROWS FROM
יצא
To go out, emerge, or come forth.
“gone out” in this verse is motsa. The utterance is pictured as something that has already gone forth from the lips. The verse holds together its source and its continuing force: what has issued from God is not later altered.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: To go out or emerge.
יָצָא
The verbal root makes the image active: the word proceeds from the speaker.
motsa: An issue, outlet, or that which goes forth.
מוֹצָא
This noun appears in the verse itself, naming the word as something already issued from the lips.
THE PATTERN
What God speaks remains in force, even as circumstances move.
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.Psalm 89 calls the utterance מוֹצָא (motsa), “what has gone forth”; Isaiah uses יָצָא (yatsa), from the same root, for the word going out from God’s mouth. The shared root pictures the spoken promise as something issued into the world and still accomplishing its purpose.
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