What Does Psalm 113:2 Mean?
Let the name of the LORD be blessed, from now and into the ages.
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
Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and for evermore.THE KEY
The LORD’s name is his nature: the verse blesses who God is from this moment into the age.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s name is the LORD’s nature made known, and that nature is blessed now. The blessing begins in this moment and extends into the age, carrying the present beyond itself.
THE ROOT
שֵׁם
shem
GROWS FROM
שׂוּם
śûm
To set or place; the noun shem is traditionally linked to this root as a distinctive mark of identity.
Shem means more than a label: a name holds the nature and character made known in a person. The verse blesses the LORD’s nature itself, not merely a sound spoken about God.
ALSO GROWS
śîm: Set, place
שִׂים
The same root gives the sense of something established or made present, deepening the name as a mark of identity.
vayyāśem: He set, placed
וַיָּשֶׂם
This verbal form carries the root’s placing sense; the LORD’s name holds the nature by which he is known.
בָּרוּךְ
barukh
GROWS FROM
בָּרַךְ
b-r-k
To bless; the related noun for knee gives the root a posture of bending.
“be blessed” in this verse is barukh. The root joins blessing with the knee: what English can make sound like praise alone also carries the image of a body bending. Here blessing names the recognition given to the LORD’s nature.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee
בֶּרֶךְ
The same consonants connect blessing with the posture of bending.
berakhah: Blessing
בְּרָכָה
This noun names the blessing spoken over the LORD’s name.
עוֹלָם
olam
GROWS FROM
עָלַם
ʿ-l-m
To hide or conceal; olam names a long duration or age.
“into the ages” in this verse is olam. Olam can mean an age, while its root carries the sense of what is hidden from view. The phrase joins the present, “from this time forth”, to an age whose full horizon remains unseen.
ALSO GROWS
neʿelam: Hidden, concealed
נֶעְלָם
This form shows the root’s sense of what is out of sight.
taʿalumot: Hidden things, secrets
תַּעֲלֻמוֹת
The same root describes what lies beyond what is presently seen, shading olam’s age-long horizon.
THE PATTERN
Blessing keeps the LORD’s name before the reader as a present reality that extends into the age.
And let his weighty name be blessed for the ages, and let the whole earth be filled with his weight. Amen, and amen.Every day I bless you, and I praise your name through the ages and the ages.Through him, then, let us always carry up a sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.THE THREAD
And let his weighty name be blessed for the ages, and let the whole earth be filled with his weight. Amen, and amen.Psalm 72:19 uses the same Hebrew blessing root and the same word for name, then names God’s kavod, his weight, as what fills the earth. The blessing of the LORD’s nature reaches beyond speech into a world filled with that weight.
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