What Does Psalm 106:10 Mean?
He delivered them from the hand of the hater, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
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
And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.THE KEY
Deliverance here means both escape from the hater’s grasp and reclamation from the enemy’s hand.
THE MEANING
When hostility holds you in its grasp, the verse speaks of being brought out of reach and reclaimed from the enemy’s claim. Rescue and restoration belong together: the hostile hand does not get the final say over you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being held by an enemy’s power means that power owns the final claim.
THE ROOT
וַיּוֹשִׁיעֵם
wayyoshiʿem
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ע
y-š-ʿ
deliver, bring into safety
“delivered” in this verse is wayyoshiʿem. The verb names movement out of the hater’s reach. Its root also forms words for deliverance and a deliverer, showing that this rescue is an act of bringing someone clear, not merely a change of status.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuʿah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the deliverance enacted by the verb in the verse.
moshiaʿ: deliverer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This form names the one who brings someone out, matching the verse’s active picture of rescue.
וַיִּגְאָלֵם
wayyigʾalem
GROWS FROM
ג־א־ל
g-ʾ-l
reclaim, redeem
“redeemed” in this verse is wayyigʾalem. The second verb adds reclamation to the rescue: the people are brought out of the enemy’s hand and recovered from it. The root can carry the sense of a kinsman reclaiming what has been lost, so redemption here has the shape of someone being retrieved.
ALSO GROWS
goʾel: kinsman-redeemer
גֹּאֵל
This related word shows the root’s sense of reclaiming on behalf of another.
geʾullah: redemption, reclamation
גְּאֻלָּה
The noun names the recovery that the verse’s second verb enacts.
שֹׂנֵא
soneʾ
GROWS FROM
שׂ־נ־א
ś-n-ʾ
hate, hostility
“the hater” in this verse is soneʾ. The Hebrew calls this figure a hater, making the threat personal rather than abstract. The verse answers that active hostility with two acts: bringing the people out and reclaiming them from the enemy’s hand.
ALSO GROWS
soneʾ: hater
שֹׂנֵא
This participle describes the person from whose grasp the people are delivered.
sinʾah: hatred
שִׂנְאָה
This noun names the hostility behind the hater’s grip.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance breaks an oppressor’s grasp and brings the held person out of its reach.
And the LORD delivered Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the lip of the sea.Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, those he has redeemed from the hand of the one who presses.That he would give us, having been brought out from the hand of our enemies, to serve him without fear,THE THREAD
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, those he has redeemed from the hand of the one who presses.Psalm 107:2 uses the same root ג־א־ל (g-ʾ-l), meaning reclaim or redeem, and repeats the phrase about being taken from the enemy’s hand. It makes the second movement in Psalm 106:10 stand out: deliverance includes being reclaimed from hostile control.
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