What Does Psalm 104:31 Mean?
Let the weight of the LORD be for the ages; let the LORD rejoice in his works.
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
The glory of the LORD shall endure for ever: the LORD shall rejoice in his works.THE KEY
God’s glory is enduring weight joined to delight in what God has made.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s weight endures through every age, and the LORD rejoices in the works of creation. What is made is not merely an expression of power; it is also an object of divine delight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the maker is indifferent to what is made: the verse places divine joy in the maker’s works.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
כבד (kābad): to be heavy or weighty; to give weight or honor.
The word translated “glory” carries the sense of weight: what is substantial, honored, and not easily dismissed. The verse presents the LORD’s weight as enduring, not as a flash of brightness that passes.
ALSO GROWS
kābēd: heavy, weighty
כָּבֵד
This branch keeps the concrete sense of weight inside “glory,” giving the LORD’s enduring presence substance.
kibbēd: to honor, treat as weighty
כִּבֵּד
The same root links weight with honor, showing how what carries weight is recognized as worthy.
יִשְׂמַח
yismaḥ
GROWS FROM
שמח
שמח (sāmaḥ): to rejoice or be glad.
“let the LORD rejoice” in this verse is yismaḥ. This root names both rejoicing and joy itself. The line places that gladness in the LORD’s relation to the works, showing creation as something the maker delights in.
ALSO GROWS
simḥah: joy, gladness
שִׂמְחָה
The noun form makes clear that the verse’s rejoicing belongs to the wider language of joy.
sameaḥ: glad, joyful
שָׂמֵחַ
This related form describes a state of gladness, echoing the verse’s picture of the LORD delighting in the works.
THE PATTERN
Creation makes its maker’s weight visible and remains an object of the maker’s delight.
And God saw all that he had made, and look, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens recount the weight of God; and the expanse sets forth the work of his hands.Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive the weight, and the honor, and the power, for you created all things, and through your will they were and were created.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens recount the weight of God; and the expanse sets forth the work of his hands.The word translated “glory” is כָּבוֹד (kavod), the same word used in Psalm 104:31. Here the heavens declare that weight; in Psalm 104, that enduring weight is joined to the LORD’s delight in the works.
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