What Does Psalm 110:7 Mean?
He drinks from the brook along the road, and so he lifts up the head.
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 shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.THE KEY
The brook is not a reward at the end of the road; it is provision along the way that lets the head rise.
THE MEANING
Your path is not pictured as dry from beginning to end: the brook is in the way, and the one who drinks rises with his head lifted. Sustenance and renewed bearing belong to the same movement, with the lift following the drink.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you must finish the road depleted before relief can reach you; the brook is already beside the way.
THE ROOT
יָרִים
yarim
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
to rise, be high, or lift up
“lifts up” in this verse is yarim. The root carries both upward movement and elevation, so the raised head suggests restored stature as well as a physical lift. The verse places that rising after a drink found mid-journey: renewal comes along the way, and then the head rises.
ALSO GROWS
ram: high, exalted
רָם
This branch shows the height contained in the raised head: the image carries a return to elevation.
romem: raise, exalt
רוֹמֵם
This verb from the same root makes the lift an act of elevation, not merely a change in posture.
THE PATTERN
Sustaining water turns depletion into continuing life and restored bearing.
But you, O LORD, are a shield around me, my weight, and the one who lifts up my head.And the LORD shall lead you continually, and fill your living soul in the parched places, and strengthen your bones. You shall be like a drenched garden, and like a spring of water whose waters never fail.But whoever drinks of the water I give never thirsts into the ages; the water I give becomes in him a spring of water leaping up into the life of the ages.THE THREAD
But you, O LORD, are a shield around me, my weight, and the one who lifts up my head.Psalm 3:3 uses the same root רום (rum, rise or lift) in “lifter up,” alongside רֹאשׁ (rosh, head). It makes the raised head something received from the LORD; Psalm 110:7 places that rising after a drink found along the way.
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