What Does 1 Chronicles 16:34 Mean?
Extend your hands in thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his faithful love endures for the ages.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.THE KEY
The mercy that endures is faithful love: the LORD’s goodness has a lasting shape.
THE MEANING
The LORD is good to you now, and his faithful love holds through every age. Gratitude rests on a kindness that does not expire when a season changes or a failure occurs.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the belief that the LORD’s love runs out when you fail or when your circumstances change.
THE ROOT
חַסְדּוֹ
ḥasdô
GROWS FROM
חסד
ḥ-s-d
To act with loyal kindness; faithful love.
The word rendered “mercy” carries the sense of faithful love, a steady loyalty rather than a passing kindness. Its related word for a faithful or devout person shows that this love also names a way of being shaped by loyalty.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsad: To act loyally or show kindness.
חָסַד
The verb makes the love here active: it is kindness expressed through faithful action.
ḥāsîd: A faithful or devout person.
חָסִיד
This related word connects the LORD’s faithful love with the quality of faithfulness it brings into view.
הוֹדוּ
hôdû
GROWS FROM
ידה
y-d-h
To acknowledge, give thanks, or praise.
“Extend your hands in thanks” in this verse is hôdû. The Hebrew word for giving thanks also carries the sense of acknowledgment and praise. Gratitude here is recognition spoken aloud, not only a feeling held privately.
ALSO GROWS
tôdâ: Thanksgiving; also a thank offering.
תּוֹדָה
This related word shows thanksgiving as something expressed and presented, giving the verse’s gratitude a visible form.
Yəhûdâ: Judah; his name is linked in Genesis 29:35 with praise.
יְהוּדָה
The same root links giving thanks with Judah’s name, showing how praise can become part of a name’s meaning.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s goodness is recognized through faithful love that endures across every age.
For the LORD is good; his faithful love reaches to the ages, and his steadiness holds from generation to generation.It is by the faithful love of the LORD that we are not used up, for his compassions do not run out.Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus the Anointed One, our Lord.THE THREAD
And the LORD passed by before his face, and called out, The LORD, The LORD God, compassionate and full of favor, slow to flare, abounding in faithful love and truth,The Hebrew word rendered “goodness” here is חֶסֶד (ḥesed, faithful love), the same word rendered “mercy” in 1 Chronicles 16:34. The enduring love named in this verse is part of the LORD’s own declared character.
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