What Does Psalm 106:1 Mean?
Praise the LORD. Extend your hands to the LORD, for he is good, for his faithful love reaches to 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
Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.THE KEY
The word rendered “mercy” is chesed, faithful love, so praise rests on a nature that does not run out.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s goodness is present now, and his faithful love holds through every age. Praise and thanks meet that enduring character in the present moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the fear that divine kindness is only temporary: this verse describes faithful love as lasting through every age.
THE ROOT
חַסְדּוֹ
ḥasdô
GROWS FROM
חסד
ḥ-s-d
Faithful love, loyal kindness expressed in relationship.
The verse’s “mercy” is chesed: faithful love that remains. The surrounding לְעוֹלָם (leʿolam, through the age or ages) gives that love a span across the ages.
ALSO GROWS
ḥasdey: Faithful loves; acts of faithful love, rendered “mercies” in some contexts.
חַסְדֵי
This plural form shows the same faithful love as something encountered in repeated acts, not only as an abstract quality.
ḥāsîd: A faithful or devout person, one characterized by loyal kindness.
חָסִיד
The same root can describe a person marked by faithful love, linking the quality in this verse with a lived character.
הוֹדוּ
hôdû
GROWS FROM
ידה
y-d-h
Acknowledge, give thanks, or praise.
“extend your hands” in this verse is hôdû. The word translated “give thanks” comes from yada, whose range includes acknowledging and praising. Thanks here is spoken recognition of the LORD’s goodness, not a feeling detached from what is named.
ALSO GROWS
tôdâ: Thanksgiving, thanks, or praise.
תּוֹדָה
This noun for thanksgiving grows from the same root as the verb in the verse, joining the act of giving thanks to its expression.
Yəhûdâ: Judah, a name associated with praise and thanksgiving.
יְהוּדָה
The shared root links the language of thanks with a name formed around praise.
THE PATTERN
Praise and gratitude rise from goodness whose faithful love remains through every age and condition.
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. They are new every morning; great is your steadiness.For I am leaning my full weight upon this, that neither death, nor life, nor messengers, nor rulers, nor powers, nor things standing here, nor things about to come. 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 “goodness” here is רַב־חֶסֶד (rav chesed, abundant in faithful love), built on the same חֶסֶד (chesed, faithful love) seed that Psalm 106:1 renders “mercy.” The shared root lets goodness and mercy appear as expressions of one enduring character.
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