Psalm 12 refers to the KJB Scripture
Posted: 27 May 2014, 17:44“The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.” (Psalm 12:6, 7).
How do we understand what Scripture is teaching? We must believe it, study it and compare Scripture with Scripture.
Very plainly, God’s words are pure words. They are existing presently. They are in earth. And they are, it is prophesied, purified seven times. When the Psalm was written, it was stating a truth, even though the process of purification had not outworked in time.
The purification of the Word, and specifically the seven times it occurred, is directly regarding the very words of Scripture. This in no way is limited to the Hebrew. In fact, the promise being outworked, we can discern, judge and apply, is with the English Bible.
It is related to that, because the next statement was that God would keep them. The them, very obviously, is whatever is being spoken of, being the words. This is the plain and clear reading of the King James Bible, and the simplest and fittest interpretation.
The promise is that God would keep His words. We know that He did not mean Hebrew, because he spoke about from this generation and for ever. This means that when Hebrew would not be spoken, when Hebrew manuscripts would differ very slightly, there would be one standard: this would be the standard before the return of Christ, the King James Bible.
So how are the words of the King James Bible specifically, by God’s special providence, purified seven times? First, because the King James Bible is the seventh major, ordinary, traditional and proper Protestant English Bible of the Reformation. The translators had a list of six former translations to follow when making the King James Bible, which began from Tyndale’s Bible. Each Bible Version can be considered a purification or improvement in some way.
Even more importantly, in regards to the very presentation in purity of God’s Word, we find that the King James Bible itself went through a seven-times process in its progress. There are really seven major editions of the King James Bible, which show revision in the presentation (but not the text or translation). The kinds of specific editorial revision work, which contributed to and purified the King James Bible, was the correction of press errors, the standardisation of the language (e.g. spelling), and the introduction of uniformity and regularisation in things like italics and other editorial consistencies. These editions are numbered from the first one in 1611, and the purifications within the King James Bible occurred in following editions, finalising in the Pure Cambridge Edition (which could be described as a slight Cambridge revision of the 1769 Edition — all present editions called “1769” are really slightly altered forms of the 1769 Edition, and none are exactly right except the Pure Cambridge Edition).
In this study of Scripture and application of it to history, we might find as helpful a proper dictionary, knowledge of the contents of the former Protestant English versions, and the information contained in commentaries and other teaching.
When the Scripture says, “Thou shalt keep them, O LORD”, it can be interpreted to mean that God would keep the righteous, and that God would keep the poor; however, it would be wrong to deny the plain and clear reading of the King James Bible, which refers to words. No excuse to deny this meaning, whether it is derived from scholars, or the Hebrew, or the marginal notes can be of the same weight and authority as Scripture itself, which being read plainly is fitly and properly interpreted according to its meaning, being the intended meaning of God.
_ _ _ _ _ _
I wrote this to a modernist who disagreed with the above study.
I believe that the Psalm 12 teaching has been explained (or “answered”) already, and not just by myself. What we really observe is that if the explanation does not match with the expositional methodology and interpretative framework of those who a priori reject the King James Bible only, then of course they will rubbish an interpretation that would be consistent with the KJB being used to authenticate itself. (Circularity is required, i.e. God is true, He speaks truth, therefore when He says His Word is true, it is the truth.)
I have already pointed out that Psalm 12 has a number of applications, including, the preservation of God’s people, keeping of the poor from harm, and the keeping of God’s Word generally. It is only by going into specific details that we find that the Psalm 12 principle lines up with the major English Protestant Bibles of the Reformation. This has been brought up by some teachers, but not many, simply because there have been a variety of views within Protestantism about all sorts of things, and that some things have not come to a greater knowledge until latter (take full immersion baptism as an example).
It is also clear that someone can use the KJB and not understand everything in it, and that some have come to wrong conclusions. This in no way makes the Psalm 12 interpretation “wrong”. If those who reject the King James Bible were honest, they would say, “Since I believe that error exists, and I am subject to it, I can not be fully certain about the Psalm 12 interpretation.” Too often, this turns to, “Since I believe that error exists, and I am subject to it, I know therefore that no one can be dogmatic about their interpretation being the truth, because there is no certainty, therefore anyone who says that Psalm 12 refers to the KJB is certainly wrong.”
To accept the King James Bible only, a person has to reject the idea of all things being subject to error. In fact, it is an antichrist doctrine that has permeated most of the Church for most of the period of its existence. For example, you will look at the Bible in English and see none perfect. This is because error exists. But rather than seeing one perfect, you will see all with some error. You might believe God’s Word is true, but you would have denied that the full truth of it is somewhere in English. The best you could have is a general truth (e.g. many versions which generally contain the truth), but no specific truth, and ultimately no fully certainty of when/where any Bible is actually true. You might say that you do believe the Scripture, and are certain of fundamental truths. Yet there is always the problem of whether or not a word belongs, or what the full import or meaning of it is, or whether not a word has been wrongly altered out of history. In short, when you read that God’s words are very pure in Psalm 12, you cannot actually see them pure today... so how can you be sure that they really are pure? (And since you cannot point to a perfect Bible, or even a perfect form of Hebrew, how do you really know that God actually promised to have purified words? After all, you do not have any actual evidence that His words are pure because you cannot see them anywhere. But at least they must be pure in Heaven!)
How do we understand what Scripture is teaching? We must believe it, study it and compare Scripture with Scripture.
Very plainly, God’s words are pure words. They are existing presently. They are in earth. And they are, it is prophesied, purified seven times. When the Psalm was written, it was stating a truth, even though the process of purification had not outworked in time.
The purification of the Word, and specifically the seven times it occurred, is directly regarding the very words of Scripture. This in no way is limited to the Hebrew. In fact, the promise being outworked, we can discern, judge and apply, is with the English Bible.
It is related to that, because the next statement was that God would keep them. The them, very obviously, is whatever is being spoken of, being the words. This is the plain and clear reading of the King James Bible, and the simplest and fittest interpretation.
The promise is that God would keep His words. We know that He did not mean Hebrew, because he spoke about from this generation and for ever. This means that when Hebrew would not be spoken, when Hebrew manuscripts would differ very slightly, there would be one standard: this would be the standard before the return of Christ, the King James Bible.
So how are the words of the King James Bible specifically, by God’s special providence, purified seven times? First, because the King James Bible is the seventh major, ordinary, traditional and proper Protestant English Bible of the Reformation. The translators had a list of six former translations to follow when making the King James Bible, which began from Tyndale’s Bible. Each Bible Version can be considered a purification or improvement in some way.
Even more importantly, in regards to the very presentation in purity of God’s Word, we find that the King James Bible itself went through a seven-times process in its progress. There are really seven major editions of the King James Bible, which show revision in the presentation (but not the text or translation). The kinds of specific editorial revision work, which contributed to and purified the King James Bible, was the correction of press errors, the standardisation of the language (e.g. spelling), and the introduction of uniformity and regularisation in things like italics and other editorial consistencies. These editions are numbered from the first one in 1611, and the purifications within the King James Bible occurred in following editions, finalising in the Pure Cambridge Edition (which could be described as a slight Cambridge revision of the 1769 Edition — all present editions called “1769” are really slightly altered forms of the 1769 Edition, and none are exactly right except the Pure Cambridge Edition).
In this study of Scripture and application of it to history, we might find as helpful a proper dictionary, knowledge of the contents of the former Protestant English versions, and the information contained in commentaries and other teaching.
When the Scripture says, “Thou shalt keep them, O LORD”, it can be interpreted to mean that God would keep the righteous, and that God would keep the poor; however, it would be wrong to deny the plain and clear reading of the King James Bible, which refers to words. No excuse to deny this meaning, whether it is derived from scholars, or the Hebrew, or the marginal notes can be of the same weight and authority as Scripture itself, which being read plainly is fitly and properly interpreted according to its meaning, being the intended meaning of God.
_ _ _ _ _ _
I wrote this to a modernist who disagreed with the above study.
I believe that the Psalm 12 teaching has been explained (or “answered”) already, and not just by myself. What we really observe is that if the explanation does not match with the expositional methodology and interpretative framework of those who a priori reject the King James Bible only, then of course they will rubbish an interpretation that would be consistent with the KJB being used to authenticate itself. (Circularity is required, i.e. God is true, He speaks truth, therefore when He says His Word is true, it is the truth.)
I have already pointed out that Psalm 12 has a number of applications, including, the preservation of God’s people, keeping of the poor from harm, and the keeping of God’s Word generally. It is only by going into specific details that we find that the Psalm 12 principle lines up with the major English Protestant Bibles of the Reformation. This has been brought up by some teachers, but not many, simply because there have been a variety of views within Protestantism about all sorts of things, and that some things have not come to a greater knowledge until latter (take full immersion baptism as an example).
It is also clear that someone can use the KJB and not understand everything in it, and that some have come to wrong conclusions. This in no way makes the Psalm 12 interpretation “wrong”. If those who reject the King James Bible were honest, they would say, “Since I believe that error exists, and I am subject to it, I can not be fully certain about the Psalm 12 interpretation.” Too often, this turns to, “Since I believe that error exists, and I am subject to it, I know therefore that no one can be dogmatic about their interpretation being the truth, because there is no certainty, therefore anyone who says that Psalm 12 refers to the KJB is certainly wrong.”
To accept the King James Bible only, a person has to reject the idea of all things being subject to error. In fact, it is an antichrist doctrine that has permeated most of the Church for most of the period of its existence. For example, you will look at the Bible in English and see none perfect. This is because error exists. But rather than seeing one perfect, you will see all with some error. You might believe God’s Word is true, but you would have denied that the full truth of it is somewhere in English. The best you could have is a general truth (e.g. many versions which generally contain the truth), but no specific truth, and ultimately no fully certainty of when/where any Bible is actually true. You might say that you do believe the Scripture, and are certain of fundamental truths. Yet there is always the problem of whether or not a word belongs, or what the full import or meaning of it is, or whether not a word has been wrongly altered out of history. In short, when you read that God’s words are very pure in Psalm 12, you cannot actually see them pure today... so how can you be sure that they really are pure? (And since you cannot point to a perfect Bible, or even a perfect form of Hebrew, how do you really know that God actually promised to have purified words? After all, you do not have any actual evidence that His words are pure because you cannot see them anywhere. But at least they must be pure in Heaven!)