What Does Psalm 86:10 Mean in the King James?
For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: thou art God alone.
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
The wonders beyond the ordinary disclose the one source from which they come.
THE MEANING
The God addressed here exceeds every frame the mind can make, and what this presence does reaches beyond the familiar. Wonder gathers around one source: this is God alone, not one power among peers.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that extraordinary power is divided among competing sources: the verse names one God as the one who does wondrous things.
THE ROOT
נִפְלָאוֹת
nifla'ot
GROWS FROM
פלא
p-l-ʾ
Be extraordinary or wondrous; surpass the ordinary.
“Wondrous things” carries the sense of acts that exceed the ordinary and resist being contained by the familiar. The verse places that surpassing action beside the claim that God is alone, so wonder discloses a singular source.
ALSO GROWS
pele: A wonder, marvel, or extraordinary deed.
פֶּלֶא
This noun shares the same root, linking the deeds in the verse with what lies beyond the ordinary.
nifla: Wonderful or extraordinary.
נִפְלָא
This related form describes what surpasses the usual, carrying the root’s sense into the quality of the wondrous.
גָּדוֹל
gādōl
GROWS FROM
גדל
g-d-l
Grow, become large, or increase.
The word for “great” carries more than superiority: its root suggests growing in size and scale. Beside wonders that exceed the ordinary, greatness names a reality whose magnitude outgrows what the mind can contain.
ALSO GROWS
gādal: To grow or become great.
גָּדַל
The verb shows the root’s sense of increasing in stature behind the description “great.”
migdal: A tower.
מִגְדָּל
A tower rises in height and scale, echoing the root’s sense of growing large.
THE PATTERN
Wonders reveal the singular source whose action exceeds ordinary bounds.
Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people.Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:THE THREAD
Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.This verse uses the same Hebrew root for “wondrous things” and says God “only” does them. That echo makes Psalm 86:10’s final “alone” feel like the completion of its wonder claim: the extraordinary points to one source.
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