What Does Psalm 106:9 Mean?
He roared at the Sea of Reeds, and it was dried up; he walked them through the depths, as through the wilderness.
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
He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness.THE KEY
The sea is addressed, dried, and turned into a route through the depths.
THE MEANING
The force that seems to block the way becomes ground through which you are led. The depths remain part of the passage, but they no longer have the final word.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that the deep can only be a dead end: here, it becomes a way through.
THE ROOT
וַיִּגְעַר
vayyig'ar
GROWS FROM
גער
g-ʿ-r
To rebuke, chide, or address sharply.
“roared at” in this verse is vayyig'ar. The sea is not described only as something physically divided; it is confronted with a rebuke. The same root appears in Psalm 104:7, where the waters flee at God’s rebuke.
ALSO GROWS
ge'arah: Rebuke or reprimand.
גְּעָרָה
This noun names the force of the address that the verb directs toward the sea.
go'er: One who rebukes.
גֹּעֵר
The active form keeps the focus on a speaker confronting what resists.
וַיֶּחֱרָב
vayyeḥĕrāv
GROWS FROM
חרב
ḥ-r-b
To dry out or become desolate.
“was dried up” in this verse is vayyeḥĕrāv. The root can describe both drying and desolation, yet here the drying makes passage possible. The sea’s change is not simply disappearance; it becomes ground beneath the travelers.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārēv: Dry or desolate.
חָרֵב
This form holds the root’s sense of land left dry, the condition that lets the people pass.
ḥārāvāh: Dry ground.
חָרָבָה
Exodus 14:21 uses this same root for the dry land made through the sea.
וַיּוֹלִיכֵם
wayyōlîḵēm
GROWS FROM
הלך
h-l-k
To go or walk; in the causative form, to cause someone to go or walk, hence to lead.
“walked them” in this verse is wayyōlîḵēm. The verb translated “led” is built from the root for going and walking. The people are guided through the depths as they move through a landscape; the passage is a journey, not merely an escape.
ALSO GROWS
halakh: To go or walk.
הָלַךְ
This is the root’s basic movement, still present in the act of being led.
hithallekh: To walk about or move through.
הִתְהַלֵּךְ
This form echoes the passage’s image of continued movement through a place.
THE PATTERN
When God confronts threatening waters, they yield and become a way through.
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD made the sea go back by a strong breath of the east all that night, and made the sea dry ground, and the waters were split.At your rebuke they flee; at the thunder of your voice they hurry away.And he said to them, Why are you fearful, you of little trust? Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.THE THREAD
At your rebuke they flee; at the thunder of your voice they hurry away.The word “rebuke” in both verses comes from גער (ga’ar). Psalm 104 makes explicit what this verse compresses: the waters retreat at the rebuke, so the crossing is also a response to God’s address.
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