What Does Psalm 113:6 Mean?
who stoops to see in the heavens and on the earth?
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
Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!THE KEY
God’s height is expressed in lowering himself until nothing in heaven or earth is beyond his sight.
THE MEANING
God is high, yet he lowers himself to behold everything in heaven and on earth. You are included in the earth he sees; your life lies within the reach of that attention.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that God’s greatness makes him too high to notice earthly life.
THE ROOT
הַמַּשְׁפִּילִי
hamashpili
GROWS FROM
שפל
shaphal
To be low; to bring low or lower.
“stoops” in this verse is hamashpili. The Hebrew pictures God actively lowering himself. His attention is joined to this descent: he draws near enough to behold all that is in heaven and on earth.
ALSO GROWS
hishpil: To lower or bring down.
הִשְׁפִּיל
This causative form shares the root and makes the verb’s active downward movement clear.
shephelah: Lowland, low country.
שְׁפֵלָה
The root describes a low place as well as a lowered condition, giving the verse’s self-lowering a concrete vertical image.
לִרְאוֹת
lir’ot
GROWS FROM
ראה
ra’ah
To see, look at, or perceive.
“see” in this verse is lir’ot. The Hebrew links lowering himself directly with seeing: God lowers himself in order to behold. The verse presents divine sight as reaching across heaven and earth, not remaining remote above them.
ALSO GROWS
ro’eh: One who sees; a seer.
רֹאֶה
The same root names the one who sees, linking sight with the act of regard.
mar’eh: Sight, appearance, or vision.
מַרְאֶה
This branch shows the root’s reach into what is seen, joining the act of seeing with its visible field.
THE PATTERN
God’s height is revealed through attention that reaches down to all creation and raises the lowly.
He raises the bowed from the dust, and lifts the one in want from the ash heap, to seat them among the openhanded, and to make them hold the seat of weight. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he sets the world upon them.For thus says the high and lifted one, who dwells in the ages, whose nature is set apart. I dwell in the high and set-apart place, and with the crushed and the low of breath, to revive the breath of the low, and to revive the heart of the crushed ones.For he has looked upon the low place of his servant. Look, from now on all generations will call me flourishing.THE THREAD
Though the LORD is lifted high, he sees the low ones, and the lofty he perceives from afar.Psalm 138:6 uses the same roots: שפל (shaphal, low) and ראה (ra’ah, see). Its pairing of the high LORD with the lowly makes explicit the downward regard compressed here into “humbleth himself to behold.”
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