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I’m doing a personal Bible study on the KJV Only doctrine. KJVO advocates point to Psalm 12:6-7 as evidence for the inerrancy of the KJV (or the source manuscripts used by them).
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.
(Psalms 12:6–7 KJV)
But other scholars [citation needed] say that Hebrew pronouns and antecedents have to match in number and gender, so the ‘them’ of verse 7 (masculine gender) must match with the poor and needy of verse 5 (also masculine) and not ‘words’ of verse 6 which are feminine gender. Moreover, even if the Psalmist did refer to the Scriptures being preserved, the Scriptures must refer to the ones David had (because he says the things being preserved are from ‘this/his generation onwards”), and not to the KJV or the Masoretic text or the NT manuscripts since none of them existed in the Psalmist’s day. I pointed this out to someone, but they said that Hebrew grammar can be interpreted two ways. My question is twofold:
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Can the referent of the pronoun “them” be interpreted in at least two different ways? It doesn’t make sense to me, if it could, surely we’d never know what ANYTHING means. I thought we had to have rules in grammar in order for things to make sense.
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Secondly, what does the term ‘preserved’ in Psalm 12:7 refer to?
