What Does Psalm 107:29 Mean?
He makes the storm stand in stillness, and its waves are hushed.
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 maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.THE KEY
The verse’s deepest turn is from storm to silence: the raging itself loses its voice.
THE MEANING
The storm around you is not beyond quieting; the waves that keep rising can fall silent. The verse holds the storm and its waves together, then shows their noise giving way to stillness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that upheaval must continue simply because it has begun.
THE ROOT
דְּמָמָה
demamah
GROWS FROM
דמם
D-M-M
To be silent, cease, or become still.
The word translated “calm” carries the sense of silence: the storm is made into quiet. Its root also appears in words for silence and quiet waiting, so the verse’s still sea shares a seed with the stillness of a waiting soul.
ALSO GROWS
damam: To be silent, cease, or become still.
דָּמַם
The verb behind the noun makes calm an act of quieting, not merely a smooth surface.
dumiyyah: Silence; quiet waiting.
דּוּמִיָּה
The same root appears in Psalm 62:1, where the KJV describes the soul as waiting upon God.
THE PATTERN
When turmoil rises, God brings its force to stillness.
You rule the surge of the sea; in the roar of its waves, you still them.And waking, he rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Be silent. Be muzzled. And the wind wore itself out, and a great calm came.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, to Jeduthun, A Psalm of David. Only toward God is my living soul hushed. From him comes my deliverance.The Hebrew word translated “waiteth” is דּוּמִיָּה (dumiyyah), from the same root as the “calm” in Psalm 107:29. The sea’s silence and the soul’s quiet waiting share one root.
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