What Does Psalm 90:7 Mean in the King James?
For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
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 verse describes anger as a force that carries people toward an end and strips away their steadiness.
THE MEANING
The verse addresses you in its present-tense “we”: under divine anger people are consumed, and wrath leaves them disoriented. It refuses to let suffering become abstract; the force and its effect are both named.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that divine anger is only a distant verdict with no present force: the verse describes it as consuming and destabilizing.
THE ROOT
כָּלִינוּ
kalinu
GROWS FROM
כלה
The root כלה (kalah) means to come to an end, be finished, or be consumed.
כָּלִינוּ (kalinu) means “we have come to an end” or “we are consumed.” Its force is not only pain but reaching the limit of what can continue; the verse places that ending under anger.
ALSO GROWS
kalah: Come to an end; be finished.
כָּלָה
This form shows the experience of reaching an ending, echoing the verse’s “we are consumed.”
killah: Bring to an end; complete; consume.
כִּלָּה
This form shows the same root as an action that brings something to its end.
נִבְהָלְנוּ
nivhalnu
GROWS FROM
בהל
The root בהל (bahal) means to be alarmed, dismayed, or terrified.
נִבְהָלְנוּ (nivhalnu) carries the sense of being alarmed or terrified. “Troubled” can sound like ordinary distress, while this root conveys a shaken, disoriented state.
ALSO GROWS
nivhal: Alarmed; dismayed.
נִבְהָל
This form shares the verse’s sense of being thrown into alarm.
behalah: Terror; panic.
בְּהָלָה
This noun shows how the same consonants name the state of alarm itself.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts divine wrath as a force that overwhelms human standing and security.
A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance. O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?THE THREAD
My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in thy word.The Hebrew word behind “fainteth” is כָּלְתָה (kaltah), from the same root כלה (kalah, come to an end). There, the root describes longing for deliverance; here, it describes people reaching an end under anger, placing anguish and longing on a shared verbal threshold.
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