What Does Psalm 108:5 Mean?
Be lifted up, O God, above the heavens; and over all the earth, let your weight be.
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
Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: and thy glory above all the earth;THE KEY
The heavens are not God’s ceiling, and the earth cannot weigh all that God is.
THE MEANING
God’s exaltation reaches beyond the heavens, and God’s weight stands above the whole earth. No part of what you can see or measure sets the limit of God’s worth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what you can see sets the limit of God’s presence or worth.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy; to carry weight.
“let your weight be” in this verse is kavod. The word rendered “glory” carries the sense of weight: God’s kavod is more than brilliance or reputation; it is what has greatest substance. The verse places that weight above the whole earth, whose scale cannot measure it.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
This related form makes the verse’s “glory” a matter of weight and substance.
kibbed: To honor, treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
To honor is to give weight; here God’s weight is placed above the whole earth.
רוּמָה
rumah
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
To rise, be high, or lift up.
“Be lifted up” in this verse is rumah. “Be thou exalted” carries the image of God being raised high. The next phrase gives that height a scale, the heavens, while “glory” adds the language of weight above the earth.
ALSO GROWS
ram: High, lofty.
רָם
This related form echoes the height named in “above the heavens.”
romem: To exalt, lift high.
רוֹמֵם
This form shares the raising-up image in the verse’s opening appeal.
THE PATTERN
God’s honor and weight exceed every created scale, from the earth to the heavens.
The LORD is lifted high over all nations, and his weight above the heavens.And one called out to another, and said, Set apart, set apart, set apart is the LORD of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his weight.Therefore God also lifted him high, and favored him with a name above every name.THE THREAD
Behold, my servant shall see clearly. He shall rise, be lifted, and be raised very high.Isaiah’s “he shall be exalted” comes from רום (rum, to rise or be high), the same root behind “Be thou exalted” here. The shared word links the Psalm’s upward image with Isaiah’s description of the servant being raised high.
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