If David were to come back in the flesh and walk into most any independent fundamental Baptist church this Sunday, and for that matter many Landmark Baptist churches, he would be surprised at what has been done with his twelfth psalm. He would recognize the words. He would not recognize the sermon. In those churches the teaching is that David was writing about the King James Version. Think about that for a moment. A Hebrew shepherd king, a thousand years before Christ, who knew nothing of the English language, supposedly had an Anglican Bible translation in his sights when he penned these lines. I can assure you he did not.

I say that as a man who once preached it. I have written elsewhere about my journey out of King James Onlyism, and Psalm 12:6-7 was one of the proof texts I used along the way. So I am not throwing rocks from a distance. In some ways I am cleaning up a mess I helped track in.

But before we get to those two verses, we need to feel the weight of the psalm that leads up to them. That is the whole problem with the KJV Only reading. It lifts two verses off the page and never asks what the other six are about.

For the choir director. According to the Sheminith. A Psalm of David.

[1] Save, O Yahweh, for the holy man ceases to be, For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. [2] They speak worthlessness to one another; With a flattering lip and with a double heart they speak. [3] May Yahweh cut off all flattering lips, The tongue that speaks great things; [4] Who have said, "With our tongue we will prevail; Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?" [5] "Because of the devastation of the afflicted, because of the groaning of the needy, Now I will arise," says Yahweh; "I will set him in the safety for which he longs." [6] The words of Yahweh are pure words; As silver tried in a furnace on the ground, refined seven times. [7] You, O Yahweh, will keep them; You will guard him from this generation forever. [8] The wicked strut about on every side When vileness is exalted among the sons of men. Psalm 12 (LSB)

What the Psalm Is About

David is not writing about translations. He is writing about a world where you cannot trust what anybody says. Flattery in your face, a knife in your back. Words used as weapons and masks instead of truth. Sound familiar? Turn on the news. Listen to the promises made in an election year and then watch what happens after the election.

The psalm opens with one word of prayer: Save. Not "bless me," not "help me a little." Save. It is a drowning man's cry, because the faithful have disappeared and David cannot find a trustworthy voice anywhere. What fills the vacuum is worthless speech delivered with a flattering lip and a double heart. Literally, in the Hebrew, "a heart and a heart." One heart on display, another heart in reserve. The lips say one thing while the second heart plots another.

By verse 4 the wicked have stated their creed. "With our tongue we will prevail. Our lips are our own. Who is lord over us?" That last line is not a question. It is a declaration of war. Heaven listens in silence through four verses, and in verse 5 the silence breaks. "Now I will arise," says Yahweh. Notice what moves Him. Not the boasting of the proud but the groaning of the needy. And notice the object of His rescue: "I will set him in the safety for which he longs." A needy man, in the singular. Hold on to that. It matters in verse 7.

So a promise has been made. But a promise is only as good as the one who makes it, and we have just spent four verses learning what human words are worth. The obvious question is whether God's words are any different from ours. Verses 6 and 7 answer that question. They also happen to be the most abused verses in the psalm.

The Purity of God's Words

Set verse 6 against verse 2 and the contrast is the whole point. Men speak worthlessness. Yahweh speaks pure words. Men speak with a double heart. God's words have no second heart hiding behind them. What He says is exactly what He means and exactly what He will do.

David reaches for the refiner's furnace to say it. A refiner melts the ore, skims the dross, and does it again, and again, until he can look into the molten silver and see his own face reflected. Seven times is the number of completeness. There is no dross in what God says, not one impure syllable, not one flattering word, not one promise with an escape clause buried in it. When God said "Now I will arise" in verse 5, that promise came out of the furnace already pure.

That is why a believer can stake everything on the promises of God while trusting no promise of man without verification. The difference is one of kind, not degree.

The Two Claims

The teaching in many fundamental Baptist and Landmark Baptist circles makes two claims from these two verses. I mention it because I have heard it, and I am sure you have too.

From verse 7 they claim that "them" in "Thou shalt keep them," as the King James renders it, refers back to the "words" of verse 6. Therefore God promised to preserve His words perfectly, and that perfect preservation is the King James Version of 1611. From verse 6 they go further still. Since the silver is "purified seven times" in the King James wording, they teach that the KJV is the seventh purification of the English Bible, the seventh and final refining of God's words in our language.

One pronoun and one number, and an entire doctrine of English translation is hung on them. Brethren, neither claim will survive contact with the text. Let me take the pronoun first, and then we will do the arithmetic.

Note this well: not one of the reasons I am about to give you is a liberal reason. Every witness I am about to call believed in the full inspiration and preservation of Scripture, and every one of them wrote long before this controversy existed. They had no dog in the fight.

First, the Grammar

John Gill, the great Baptist expositor of the 1700s, dealt with this exact question, because a Jewish commentator named Aben Ezra had proposed the "words" reading back in the Middle Ages. Gill rejected it on the Hebrew itself. The pronoun affix in verse 7 is masculine, and the word for "words" in verse 6 is feminine. In Hebrew, pronouns must agree in gender with what they refer to. A masculine "them" cannot point back to feminine "words." Here is Gill in his own words:

Not the words before mentioned, as Aben Ezra explains it, for the affix is masculine and not feminine; not but God has wonderfully kept and preserved the sacred writings; and he keeps every word of promise which he has made; and the doctrines of the Gospel will always continue from one generation to another; but the sense is, that God will keep the poor and needy, and such as he sets in safety, as Kimchi rightly observes: they are not their own keepers, but God is the keeper of them; he keeps them by his power, and in his son, in whose hands they are, and who is able to keep them from falling; they are kept by him from a total and final falling away; from the dominion and damning power of sin, and from being devoured by Satan, and from the evil of the world: and this the psalmist had good reason to believe, because of the love of God to them, his covenant with them, and the promises of safety and salvation he has made unto them. Thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever; or thou shalt preserve him; that is, every one of the poor and needy, from the wicked generation of men in which they live, from being corrupted or intimidated by them; and who are described in the beginning of the psalm. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, on Psalm 12:7

That line in the middle is worth remembering: "they are not their own keepers, but God is the keeper of them." Gill even caught the singular at the end of the verse, "thou shalt preserve him," every one of the poor and needy.

Your LSB has already done this work for you. Verse 7 reads, "You, O Yahweh, will keep them; You will guard him from this generation forever." Them, and then him, singular. Who is the "him"? The needy man of verse 5, the one God set in safety. This is not a textual variant, either. The Hebrew behind Psalm 12:7 in the King James is the same Hebrew behind Psalm 12:7 in the Legacy Standard Bible. It is a matter of translation, and the grammar points at people, not at parchment.

Second, the Context

Rather than lift these verses off the page, follow the flow of the psalm. Verse 5, God promises to arise and rescue. Who or what? The afflicted, the needy. That is what this psalm is about: Yahweh rescuing a people from an evil generation. Verse 6, David declares that this promise, unlike the words of men, is pure and trustworthy. Verse 7, David draws the conclusion: therefore You will keep them, You will guard him from this generation forever.

From what generation? From "this generation," the very crooked generation of flatterers and boasters described in verses 1 through 4, the same generation still strutting in verse 8. God's people needed guarding from that generation. His words never did. Nobody in Saul's court was a threat to the Hebrew text. The people were the ones in danger, and the people are the ones the promise covers.

Third, the Witnesses

Gill was not alone. Here are three more of the old commentators, writing across nearly two centuries.

Matthew Poole, the English Puritan, is the oldest of them. His Annotations came out in the 1680s, and he was honest enough to set down both readings he knew of:

Thou shalt keep them; either, 1. The poor and needy, ver. 5, from the crafts and malice of this crooked and perverse generation of men, and for ever. Or, 2. Thy words or promises last mentioned, ver. 6. These thou wilt observe and keep (as these two verbs commonly signify) both now, and from this generation for ever, i.e. Thou wilt not only keep thy promise to me in preserving me, and advancing me to the throne, but also to my posterity from generation to generation. Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible, on Psalm 12:7

Look closely at that second option, because somebody is bound to grab hold of it. Even when Poole lets "them" mean God's words, he means God keeping His promises the way an honest man keeps his word, by doing what He said. The promise he has in mind is God preserving David on his way to the throne, and his children after him. That is a long way from guarding a text, and further still from an English translation. On the second half of the verse, Poole adds a note that the Hebrew reads "him," that is, every one of them.

Matthew Henry, writing in the early 1700s, reads it the same way Gill does:

That God will secure his chosen remnant to himself, how bad soever the times are (v. 7): Thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever. This intimates that, as long as the world stands, there will be a generation of proud and wicked men in it, more or less, who will threaten by their wretched arts to ruin religion, by wearing out the saints of the Most High, Dan. 7:25. But let God alone to maintain his own interest and to preserve his own people. He will keep them from this generation, (1.) From being debauched by them and drawn away from God, from mingling with them and learning their works. In times of general apostasy the Lord knows those that are his, and they shall be enabled to keep their integrity. (2.) From being destroyed and rooted out by them. The church is built upon a rock, and so well fortified that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. In the worst of times God has his remnant, and in every age will reserve to himself a holy seed and preserve that to his heavenly kingdom. Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Psalm 12:7

Albert Barnes says plainly that "them" refers to the persons of verse 5, the poor and the needy suffering wrong. Then he explains what the promise means for them:

The idea is, that God would guard and defend them. They were safe in his hands. Comp. Ps. 37:3–7.

For ever. That is, constantly, or as long as they would need the Divine protection. God would not interpose and save them from the present trouble, and then leave them to the designs of their enemies, but he would always interpose as often as there was any need of his help. That is, they were now, and would be at all times, entirely safe. They had nothing to fear, for God was their refuge and their help.

Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament: Psalms, on Psalm 12:7

Not one syllable in Poole, Henry, Gill, or Barnes about an English translation appearing twenty-six centuries after David.

So to take Psalm 12:6-7 as a proof text for the King James Version is to take it out of context. But there is a second problem, and this one does not even require Hebrew. It requires counting and a little history.

Doing the Arithmetic on "Purified Seven Times"

The story goes that the King James of 1611 is the seventh purified English translation, foretold by silver refined seven times. Here is the actual line of English Bibles before 1611. Count with me.

Chart listing the eight English Bibles before 1611: Wycliffe 1382, Tyndale's New Testament 1526, Coverdale 1535, Matthew's 1537, Great Bible 1539, Geneva 1560, Bishops' 1568, and Douay-Rheims 1582 and 1609 to 1610. The King James of 1611 is ninth, or eighth setting Douay-Rheims aside.
The English Bibles before 1611, as shown during the sermon. The King James is ninth on the list, or eighth if the Douay-Rheims is set aside.

1. The Wycliffe Bible, about 1382. The first complete Bible in English, translated from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his associates and copied by hand, because it came before the printing press.

2. Tyndale's New Testament, 1526. The first English New Testament rendered directly from the Greek and the first printed in English. Tyndale gave us the Pentateuch in 1530 and Jonah in 1531 from the Hebrew before they strangled and burned him in 1536.

3. The Coverdale Bible, 1535. The first complete printed Bible in English, leaning on Tyndale, the Vulgate, and Luther's German rather than working straight from the originals.

4. Matthew's Bible, 1537. Published by John Rogers under the pen name Thomas Matthew, combining Tyndale's work with Coverdale's, and carrying royal license.

5. The Great Bible, 1539. Prepared by Coverdale at Thomas Cromwell's direction, the first authorized English Bible, ordered into every parish church.

6. The Geneva Bible, 1560. Produced by English exiles during Bloody Mary's reign, the first English Bible with verse divisions throughout, translated entirely from the original languages. It was the Bible of the Puritans and the Pilgrims and of most English households for two generations, and the KJV translators knew it well.

7. The Bishops' Bible, 1568. The Church of England's answer to the Geneva Bible's popularity, and the base text the KJV translators were instructed to use.

8. The Douay-Rheims, New Testament 1582, Old Testament 1609 and 1610. The Roman Catholic translation from the Vulgate, produced by English Catholic exiles in France. It stood outside the Protestant line, but it existed, and honest counting has to acknowledge it.

Where does that put the King James of 1611? Ninth. Set the Douay-Rheims aside as outside the Protestant stream and it is eighth. The only way to make the King James come out seventh is to start erasing Bibles from history, and that is exactly what the argument does. It quietly drops Wycliffe, the first complete English Bible, the one men risked their lives to copy and read, because he worked from the Vulgate. A doctrine that has to erase martyrs to make its arithmetic work is not exegesis. It is numerology with a concordance.

What the Argument Does to Verse 6

The deeper problem is what this teaching does to the verse itself. Read it again, carefully. The words of Yahweh are pure words. David did not write that the words of Yahweh will be pure someday when English comes along and the translators happen to get it right. He said they are. Check the KJV. It says the same thing. "The words of the Lord are pure words: As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." Present tense. Pure as spoken, pure from the mouth of God. "Refined seven times" is a Hebrew figure of completeness describing how pure those words already were, the way we might say something is one hundred percent pure. It is a simile about the character of God's speech, not a prophecy of English publishing history.

Turn it into a countdown and you have taught, whether you meant to or not, that the first six English Bibles were impure. Think about what that means. Tyndale went to the stake for an impure Bible? The Pilgrims crossed an ocean clutching dross?

And here the Landmarker has a bigger problem than most. If you believe, as we do, that the Lord has preserved His church through every generation, then you must believe those churches had a pure Bible. What is a church without one? Were the Baptists before 1611 preaching from dross? Were the Waldenses and the Albigenses dying for a corruption? What of the churches that speak other languages today? The Lord said He would build His church and the gates of Hades would not overpower it. He did not say the church would have to wait for an Anglican king to get a Bible.

And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. Matthew 16:18 (LSB)

One more thing. If seven refinings made the text purer than six, what forbids an eighth from being purer than seven? The argument dishonors the very verse it claims to exalt. And the King James itself was revised more than once. No church, not even the most holier-than-thou King James Only church, uses the 1611 today. The KJV you use today is essentially the 1769 Oxford revision, and that was not even the second revision. The KJV was revised in 1629, 1638, 1762, and 1769. By the movement's own counting rules, the 1611 would not even be the final refinement of the King James.

What I Am Saying and What I Am Not

Do I believe God has preserved His Word? With all my heart I believe it. The Scriptures teach it elsewhere, and the very existence of the Bible in your lap after three thousand years of empires, fires, and heresies proves it. God has indeed wonderfully kept the sacred writings, as Gill himself was glad to affirm. But that glorious truth is not what Psalm 12:6-7 is teaching, and it is certainly not a promise about one seventeenth-century translation commissioned by an Anglican king.

David knew nothing of English. What David knew was that a wicked generation surrounded God's people, and that the God whose words are pure had promised to keep them safe. That is the doctrine of verse 7, and it is better news than the counterfeit. A preserved Bible on your lap is a treasure. A preserving God at your side is a fortress.

Two applications. First, test everything you hear from any pulpit, including this one, against the text itself. A whole movement has been built on a misread pronoun, some rewritten history, and bad math. Be the kind of Berean who opens the Book and takes a few minutes to check.

Second, and more sweetly, rest your whole weight on the promises of God. Every promise He has made to you in Christ came out of that sevenfold furnace. Your assurance does not rise and fall with your circumstances, because it rests on words with no dross in them. When you cannot trust a single voice around you, you can still trust every word He has spoken.

The psalm does not end with a hallelujah. Verse 8 comes after verse 7, and the Holy Spirit put it there on purpose. The wicked are still strutting. The promise of divine protection does not remove the visible reign of wickedness; God keeps His people in the middle of a vile generation, not by taking them out of it. Keep believing verse 7 while you are living in verse 8. That is what faith is.