What Does Psalm 94:4 Mean in the King James?
How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?
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
Their boastful speech gushes like a spring, making their words a disclosure of the source they flow from.
THE MEANING
You hear people pouring out hard, arrogant words and lifting themselves up. The verse names their speech as overflow: what comes from them exposes the crookedness they serve. Its question, “How long?” holds that outpouring under scrutiny now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that relentless boasting is harmless noise: the verse presents it as the outward flow of an inward allegiance to crookedness.
THE ROOT
יביעו
yabbîʿû
GROWS FROM
נבע
n-b-ʿ
To bubble up, gush forth, or flow out.
“utter” in this verse is yabbîʿû. The verb for uttering can describe a wellspring bubbling out, so speech is pictured as flow from an inner source. Psalm 19:2 uses the same verb for day pouring forth speech; English leaves the spring image mostly hidden.
ALSO GROWS
nōvēaʿ: Welling or flowing, as of a spring or brook.
נֹבֵעַ
Proverbs 18:4 uses this form for a flowing brook, linking utterance with water rising from a source.
yabbîaʿ: Pours forth or utters.
יַבִּיעַ
Psalm 19:2 uses this form for day pouring forth speech, showing that the same root carries both spoken words and bubbling flow.
THE PATTERN
Speech flows from an inner source, and what comes out reveals what fills it.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.The words of a man’s mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of wisdom as a flowing brook.A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.THE THREAD
The words of a man’s mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of wisdom as a flowing brook.Proverbs uses the same Hebrew root behind “utter” to describe a spring that wells up. The image makes the psalm’s speech concrete: words gush from a source, and what flows reveals what that source holds.
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