What Does Psalm 118:20 Mean?
This is the gate to the LORD; the aligned enter into it.
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
This gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter.THE KEY
The gate belongs to the LORD, and those aligned with what is right come through it into his presence.
THE MEANING
This threshold belongs to the LORD, and those aligned with what is right enter through it. The verse pictures entry as arrival into God’s own domain, where alignment names those who pass.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that access to the LORD’s presence is something people own or make for themselves: the gate is his.
THE ROOT
צַדִּיקִים
tsaddiqim
GROWS FROM
צדק
ṣ-d-q
rightness, justice, alignment
“aligned” in this verse is tsaddiqim. The word translated “righteous” grows from the root of rightness and justice. The ones who enter are named by alignment with what is right, not by a title detached from how they stand.
ALSO GROWS
tzedek: rightness, justice, alignment
צֶדֶק
This noun makes visible the quality carried by the people called righteous at the gate.
tzedakah: righteousness, justice
צְדָקָה
This branch carries the same root into the practice and expression of rightness.
יָבֹאוּ
yavo'u
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
to come, arrive, enter
“enter into it” in this verse is yavo'u. The verb carries the sense of coming and arriving as well as entering. The righteous are pictured not merely crossing a boundary but arriving at the LORD’s gate and coming into his domain.
ALSO GROWS
bo: to come, arrive, or enter
בּוֹא
This basic verb holds arrival and entry together in the movement through the gate.
mavo: entrance, approach
מָבוֹא
This related noun carries the root’s movement into the idea of an entrance or way in.
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly pictures coming into God’s presence and life as passing through an opening that belongs to God.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with a clamor of praise; lift your hands to him, and bless his nature.Open the gates, that the aligned nation which keeps what is steady may enter in.I am the door. Through me, if anyone enters, he shall be delivered, and shall go in and out, and shall find pasture.THE THREAD
Open the gates, that the aligned nation which keeps what is steady may enter in.Isaiah uses the same Hebrew root, צדק (ṣ-d-q), for “righteous” and pairs it with gates and entry. The shared language shows the Psalm’s threshold as part of a recurring image: the way in belongs to God, and entry is bound up with alignment.
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