What Does Psalm 95:4 Mean in the King James?
In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.
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
Earth’s deepest recesses and its highest peaks are already within the same hand.
THE MEANING
What feels buried beyond your reach is held, and what rises beyond your scale is held too. The verse gathers hidden depth and visible height into God’s hand, leaving no place outside his keeping.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that what lies beyond human reach has fallen outside God’s keeping dissolves here: earth’s recesses and mountain heights are both in his hand.
THE ROOT
מֶחְקְרֵי
meḥqĕrê
GROWS FROM
חקר
to search out, investigate, or probe
The Hebrew word translated “deep places” comes from חקר (ḥāqar, “to search out or probe”), carrying the sense of earth’s hidden recesses. The verse places even these far-reaching depths within God’s hand.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāqar: to search, investigate, or probe
חָקַר
This verb reveals the searching image carried by the word for earth’s depths.
ḥēqer: searching, investigation; a depth or recess
חֵקֶר
This related noun links probing into what is hidden with the deep recesses named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
No height or depth lies beyond God’s reach.
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.Psalm 95 uses a form of חקר (ḥāqar, “to search out or probe”) for earth’s hidden depths; here the same root describes God searching the reader. The word that reaches into the earth’s recesses also speaks of being fully known.
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