What Does Psalm 106:21 Mean?
They forgot God, the one who delivered them, who had done great things in Egypt.
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
They forgat God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt;THE KEY
The Hebrew names God as the one who brings people out, while Mitzrayim carries the shape of the narrowing from which deliverance opens.
THE MEANING
You can lose sight of the one who brings you through constriction even while the acts of deliverance remain part of your story. Here, deliverance is not an idea but something done; the narrow place is not the whole horizon.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the belief that confinement is all there is, or that deliverance has no acts behind it.
THE ROOT
מוֹשִׁיעָם
môšîʿām
GROWS FROM
ישע
To deliver, bring to safety, and open a way out.
“the one who delivered them” in this verse is môšîʿām. The word names God by the act of bringing people out. The verse places that nature against Egypt’s narrowing: deliverance is an opening, not merely a title.
ALSO GROWS
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
The deliverance in the verse shares the same root as the one called their deliverer.
hôšîaʿ: he delivered
הוֹשִׁיעַ
This verb makes the root’s movement concrete: deliverance is something enacted.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitsrayim
GROWS FROM
מצר
Narrowness, a strait, or constriction.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitsrayim. Mitzrayim carries the shape of a narrowing, and its -ayim ending holds a twofold form of that constriction. The verse sets this narrow place beside the deliverer and the great deeds that open beyond it.
ALSO GROWS
mēṣar: a narrow place or strait
מֵצַר
The same consonants give the name of Egypt a concrete resonance of constriction.
metsarim: straits or narrow places
מְצָרִים
The plural form echoes the passage’s setting as a place of constriction.
גְּדֹלוֹת
gedolot
GROWS FROM
גדל
To grow or become great.
“great things” in this verse is gedolot. The deeds are called great from a root of growth and increase. Against Egypt’s narrowness, the verse remembers acts that exceed the confines of the place.
ALSO GROWS
gādōl: great, large
גָּדוֹל
This adjective shares the root and describes the scale of what God does.
gidul: growth, increase
גִּדּוּל
This noun brings out the root’s movement toward what expands beyond a confined space.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance opens a way through constriction, and its remembered acts keep that opening visible.
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.I remember the deeds of the LORD; surely I remember your wonders of old.Who brought us out of so great a death, and brings us out; in whom we hope that he will yet bring us out.THE THREAD
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.The Hebrew word translated “saved” comes from ישע, the same root carried in מוֹשִׁיעָם, “their saviour.” The name in Psalm 106:21 points to the very act of deliverance described here.
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