What Does Psalm 148:9 Mean in the King James?
Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Fruit-bearing trees and cedars stand together in the summons to praise, so creation’s witness includes both what produces and what simply endures.
THE MEANING
The landscape around you belongs within the life of praise: mountains, hills, fruit trees, and cedars are all named. The verse holds fruitfulness and endurance together as part of creation’s response to God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that praise belongs only to human voices or to what is productive; mountains and cedars share the summons with fruit-bearing trees.
THE ROOT
פְּרִי
peri
GROWS FROM
פרה
to bear fruit, become fruitful
The Hebrew phrase is literally “tree of fruit,” and פְּרִי (peri, fruit) is linked to פָּרָה (parah, bear fruit or become fruitful). The tree is named through what emerges from it, placing generative life within the landscape’s praise.
ALSO GROWS
parah: to bear fruit; to become fruitful
פָּרָה
It shares the seed beneath “fruit,” joining the product named in the verse to the act of bearing it.
hiphrah: to make fruitful; to cause to increase
הִפְרָה
This causative branch shows the root can name fruitfulness as something brought forth, echoing the tree’s place among living creation.
THE PATTERN
The created world belongs within praise, from its landscapes and trees to every living creature.
Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: then shall all the trees of the wood rejoiceFor ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.THE THREAD
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.Genesis names the fruit tree with the same פְּרִי (peri, fruit) root found in Psalm 148:9. The generative life that first appears as creation’s unfolding is also named among the voices of praise.
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