What Does Psalm 99:8 Mean in the King James?
Thou answeredst them, O LORD our God: thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou tookest vengeance of their inventions.
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 Hebrew holds forgiveness and vengeance together: God bears the people’s crookedness, while their deeds still have consequences.
THE MEANING
You meet a God who answers and bears wrongdoing. Yet the deeds named in the verse still meet vengeance; being forgiven does not make them disappear or become inconsequential.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being forgiven means your actions no longer matter.
THE ROOT
נֹשֵׂא
nōśēʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-ś-ʾ
To lift, carry, or bear.
The word translated “forgavest” is literally a form of “bear.” The verse’s image is not that wrongdoing is made weightless: God bears the people’s crookedness even as the verse names consequences for their deeds.
ALSO GROWS
nāśāʾ: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This is the root verb behind the word translated “forgavest,” revealing the image beneath it.
nōśēʾ ʿāwōn: Bearing crookedness; an expression for forgiving wrongdoing.
נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן
This phrase makes the connection explicit: forgiveness is spoken of as bearing the crookedness.
nāśīʾ: A leader or prince; one elevated.
נָשִׂיא
This related form extends the root’s image of being lifted up, though the verse’s central branch is bearing wrongdoing.
נֹקֵם
nōqēm
GROWS FROM
נקם
n-q-m
To avenge or exact vengeance.
“tookest vengeance” in this verse is nōqēm. The verse places this action beside God’s bearing of the people’s crookedness. Its two clauses keep mercy and the weight of deeds in view at the same time.
ALSO GROWS
nāqam: To avenge.
נָקַם
This is the verb behind the verse’s language of taking vengeance.
neqāmāh: Vengeance.
נְקָמָה
The noun form names the consequence-bearing action set beside forgiveness here.
THE PATTERN
God’s bearing of wrongdoing does not make the deeds themselves inconsequential.
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.The Hebrew word translated “forgiving” here shares the root נשא (nāśāʾ, to carry or bear) with the word behind Psalm 99:8’s “forgavest.” Exodus sets that bearing beside “by no means clear the guilty,” opening the same tension that Psalm 99:8 holds in one line.
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