What Does Psalm 93:3 Mean in the King James?
The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves.
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 floods lift their waters, their voice, and their waves with the same Hebrew verb: the whole verse surges on one repeated rising.
THE MEANING
The force pressing against you can rise, make itself heard, and return in waves. The verse names that turmoil plainly before the LORD; its voice is not hidden or softened.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that turmoil must become quiet before it can be named before the LORD.
THE ROOT
נָשְׂאוּ
nāśəʾū
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-ś-ʾ
To lift, carry, or bear.
“lifted up” in this verse is nāśəʾū. The same root appears in all three rising actions: the floods lift, lift their voice, and lift their waves. English makes these sound like separate movements, while Hebrew lets one verb carry the whole surge.
ALSO GROWS
nāśāʾ: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This is the root verb repeated through the verse, joining the water’s rising, its voice, and its waves.
nāśîʾ: A prince or leader.
נָשִׂיא
This word is associated with one lifted up, showing how the root can extend from raising something to the status of someone raised.
maśśāʾ: A burden or an oracle.
מַשָּׂא
A burden is something borne; an oracle is a message carried. The root gathers both physical force and voiced expression.
THE PATTERN
Rising turmoil may roar in full force, yet its sound does not become the final authority.
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.THE THREAD
The LORD on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.Verse 3 lets the floods lift themselves three times; verse 4 answers their noise with the LORD’s greater might. The waters are not denied, their roar is placed beneath a higher rule.
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