What Does Psalm 113:9 Mean?
He settles the uprooted woman in the house, a glad mother of children. Praise the LORD.
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 barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.THE KEY
The verse’s hidden turn is that the barren woman is not merely given a child; she is settled into a home as a joyful mother.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to your present experience of barrenness without making barrenness your permanent name. Its image is a settled home, a mother among children, and joy no longer held outside.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An empty season means you are permanently cut off from belonging, fruitfulness, and joy.
THE ROOT
מוֹשִׁיבִי
moshivi
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-b
To sit or dwell; in its causative form, to seat or settle.
“settles the uprooted woman in the house” in this verse is moshivi. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of settling someone into a place, so the verse describes more than a change in status: the barren woman is given a dwelling among family. The English “keep house” can hide that movement into a place of belonging.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: Sit, dwell, remain.
יָשַׁב
This basic form shows the dwelling at the heart of the verse’s image.
moshav: Dwelling, seat, settlement.
מוֹשָׁב
This related noun makes the idea of being established in a home visible.
עֲקֶרֶת
ʿaqeret
GROWS FROM
עקר
ʿ-q-r
Be barren; uproot or pull up.
“uprooted” in this verse is ʿaqeret. The root can name both barrenness and uprooting, echoing the difference between being cut off from fruitfulness and being settled in a home. The verse lets “barren” be real while refusing to leave it as the woman’s only name.
ALSO GROWS
ʿaqār: Barren, unfruitful.
עָקָר
This related form names the condition that the verse’s turn transforms.
ʿāqar: Uproot, pull up.
עָקַר
This verb echoes the sense of being cut off that stands against the woman’s new place in a home.
THE PATTERN
The one called barren is brought into fruitfulness and shared joy.
Those who are full hire themselves out for bread, and the hungry stop until the barren one bears seven; and she who has many children withers.Ring out, O unrooted one who did not bring forth; burst open into a ringing cry, and lift your voice, you who did not writhe in labor, for many are the children of the emptied one, more than the children of the mastered wife, says the LORD.And behold, your kinswoman Elisabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month for her, she who was called unyielding.THE THREAD
God settles the lone ones into households; he brings out the bound ones in chains; but the ones who turn away dwell in a parched land.Both verses use the Hebrew root ישב (y-sh-b), meaning sit or dwell, in a causative form: God settles the solitary into families and the barren woman in a home. The shared root reveals the same movement from isolation into belonging.
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