What Does 1 Chronicles 16:7 Mean?
Then on that day David first gave into the hand of Asaph and his brothers this psalm, to extend hands in thanks to the LORD.
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
Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to thank the LORD into the hand of Asaph and his brethren.THE KEY
Thanksgiving becomes a song entrusted to other hands, something a community carries together.
THE MEANING
Thanksgiving takes tangible form when praise is placed in other hands. It becomes a shared voice, gathered and carried by a community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that gratitude is only a private feeling falls away here: thanksgiving is given voice and entrusted to others.
THE ROOT
לְהוֹדוֹת
lehodot
GROWS FROM
ידה
To praise, acknowledge, or give thanks.
“thank” in this verse is lehodot. The word for giving thanks belongs to a root that also carries praise and acknowledgment. Thanksgiving here is voiced recognition, not merely a feeling kept inside.
ALSO GROWS
todah: Thanksgiving, praise; in some contexts, a thanksgiving offering.
תּוֹדָה
This related word shows thanksgiving as something that can be expressed and presented.
yadah: To give thanks, praise, or acknowledge.
יָדָה
This verb shares the root of the verse’s word for thanking, joining gratitude with open acknowledgment.
וַיִּתֵּן
vayitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, set, or place.
“gave” in this verse is vayitten. The action carries the sense of placing something into another’s hands. The praise is made tangible by being entrusted to others.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This verb is the root form behind the act of giving in the verse.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
This related noun frames what is given as a gift: the song of thanksgiving is entrusted to the community.
אָסָף
Asaph
GROWS FROM
אסף
To gather, collect, or bring in.
Asaph’s name carries the sense of gathering. The verse places thanksgiving with the Gatherer and his brothers, so praise enters a shared voice.
ALSO GROWS
asaph: To gather or collect.
אָסַף
The name’s root sense echoes the gathered company receiving the song.
asif: Ingathering; harvest.
אָסִיף
This related word extends the root’s sense of gathering into a collected yield, fitting praise carried by a community.
THE PATTERN
Thanksgiving takes shape as shared speech and song that gathers people in praise.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with a clamor of praise; lift your hands to him, and bless his nature.Let the word of the Anointed One settle in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in plucked songs, in hymns, and in songs of breath, singing with favor in your hearts to God.What then is it, brothers? When you gather together, each of you has a song, has a teaching, has an unveiling, has a tongue, has a carrying across. Let all things become for the building up.THE THREAD
Offer to God thanksgiving, and make whole your vows to the Most High.The Hebrew root יָדָה (yadah), to give thanks or praise, appears here in the word for thanksgiving. Psalm 50 presents that thanksgiving as an offering, opening this verse’s entrusted song as something people can bring and share.
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