What Does Psalm 116:15 Mean?
Weighty in the eyes of the LORD is the death of those who hold his faithful love.
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
Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.THE KEY
The death of someone held in faithful love is named as a costly loss in the LORD’s own sight.
THE MEANING
The passing of the LORD’s faithful ones carries weight before him; it is neither trivial nor unseen. The verse holds their death within the care of the one who sees it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a faithful person’s death is cheap or invisible to God.
THE ROOT
יָקָר
yaqar
GROWS FROM
יקר
To be precious, costly, or rare.
“weighty” in this verse is yaqar. The word carries the sense of something valuable and costly. The verse does not call death good; it says the loss of the LORD’s faithful ones is never trivial in his sight.
ALSO GROWS
yaqar: Precious or rare.
יָקָר
In 1 Samuel 3:1, the word describes something rare; here it makes the death of the faithful something precious and weighty in the LORD’s sight.
yeqar: Honor or preciousness.
יְקָר
This related form shows how the root can name the value and honor attached to someone or something.
חֲסִידָיו
chasidav
GROWS FROM
חסד
Faithful love; steadfast care.
“those who hold his faithful love” in this verse is chasidav. The word translated “saints” identifies the dead as the LORD’s faithful ones, with a word rooted in faithful love. The verse connects their death to the relationship of care that marks them as his.
ALSO GROWS
chesed: Faithful love.
חֶסֶד
This is the root that gives “his faithful ones” its relational depth: they are marked by faithful love.
chasid: A faithful or devoted one.
חָסִיד
This singular form shows the person described by the root; the verse uses the plural with “his,” naming those who belong to the LORD.
מָוֶת
mavet
GROWS FROM
מות
To die.
“the death” in this verse is mavet. The Hebrew names death directly, while the verse places that death before the LORD’s regard. The same root links the event of dying with the condition of being dead.
ALSO GROWS
mut: To die.
מוּת
The verb names the act that the noun “death” describes.
met: Dead; one who has died.
מֵת
This form brings the root from the event of death to the person who has died.
THE PATTERN
God’s regard assigns real value to the lives and losses that others may overlook.
He redeems their living soul from deceit and violence, and their blood is weighty in his eyes.Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.For I am leaning my full weight upon this, that neither death, nor life, nor messengers, nor rulers, nor powers, nor things standing here, nor things about to come. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus the Anointed One, our Lord.THE THREAD
He redeems their living soul from deceit and violence, and their blood is weighty in his eyes.The same Hebrew word, יָקָר (yaqar), appears in both verses as “precious.” Psalm 72:14 applies it to their blood, showing that what is lost through violence carries costly value in God’s sight.
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