What Does Psalm 9:6 Mean in the King James?
O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.
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 final loss is the city’s remembered presence: its ruin reaches into whether it remains in anyone’s memory.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of destruction at its fullest reach: cities can be torn away, and their remembered presence can vanish with them. Even devastation that seems permanent stands under an ending.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that destruction secures an enduring name: the verse lets a city’s memorial perish with the city.
THE ROOT
זִכְרָם
zikhram
GROWS FROM
זכר
remember, recall
Beneath “memorial” is the word-family of remembering. The verse speaks not only of a city’s remains, but of its remembered presence disappearing with it.
ALSO GROWS
remember: To call to mind or keep in memory.
This branch makes clear that the loss reaches beyond the city’s physical remains to the act of recalling it.
remembrance: A recollection or memorial.
This is the word the verse says has perished, joining memory directly to the fate of the cities.
אָבַד
ʾāḇaḏ
GROWS FROM
אבד
perish, be lost
“perished” in this verse is ʾāḇaḏ. The root holds both perishing and being lost. Here it carries the city’s remembrance into loss, extending destruction from what can be seen to what can be recalled.
ALSO GROWS
perish: To cease to exist or be lost.
This is the verse’s direct word for what happens to the memorial.
destruction: Ruin or a state of loss.
This branch echoes the verse’s ruined cities and shows how the same field of loss reaches their remembrance.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents remembrance as a legacy that can be cut off or carried forward, never guaranteed by earthly permanence.
The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot.Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.THE THREAD
The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.“The remembrance of them” uses the same Hebrew root for remembering that appears as “memorial” in Psalm 9:6. Together, the verses connect a city’s lost remembrance with remembrance itself being cut off from the earth.
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